The Incidental Tourists
by KADH
Summary: Nothing's ever been easy for Grissom and Sara. So why would attempting to go on vacation be any different? And in their case, even with the best laid plans, awry doesn't even begin to cover it. But then that's not always a bad thing.
1. One: Acts of God and Other Complications

Nothing's ever been easy for Grissom and Sara. So why would attempting to go on vacation prove to be any different?

For travel, like the course of true love, never did run smooth. And in their case, with even the best-laid plans, _awry_ doesn't begin to cover it.

But then that's not always a bad thing.

_Takes place between episodes 10x17 "Irradiator" and 10x19 "World's End," _

_circa April 2010._

_With thanks (I think) to MB as this is really ALL your fault._

**

* * *

One: Acts of God and Other Complications**

_"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley."_

The best-laid plans of mice and men / Go oft awry.

- "To a Mouse," Robert Burns

It was supposed to have been simple.

A simple spring holiday in the south of France.

Or so Sara planned it.

Not that anything ever seemed to go according to plan.

Mostly, it had been work getting in the way. Dead bodies tended to trump date nights. So after all the years in Vegas of rain checks and rescheduling, she should have known better. Should have.

But for the most part, Sara's trips to Paris over the last seven months had been blissfully without complications. Well, as long as you didn't count her discovering that dead body the December before. So there was no reason for her to think that this time would be any different.

Nor was there for Grissom, who knew nothing about Sara's plans. Apart from the fact that his wife was coming for her now customary monthly visit, he wasn't even aware that there were plans for that particular portion of his two week teaching hiatus while the Sorbonne was closed for its spring holidays.

He certainly hadn't made any of his own, or at least hadn't the last time the two of them had spoken of it. Something that hadn't surprised Sara in the slightest. He'd been even worse than she had about taking time off when they'd both been working as CSIs.

Although Sara had been more pleased than rueful when in reply to her asking if he wanted any plans, he simply smiled and told her, "If they involve you, of course."

Which Sara took to mean she was free to make whatever ones she wished.

Of course it was never a question of Grissom returning to Vegas for a visit. Off or no, she'd just be called in and they'd barely get to see one another. Besides, Sara was looking forward to taking an actual bona fide vacation with her husband. For while they had done their fair share of traveling since he'd surprised her in Costa Rica that Christmas two years before, apart from their honeymoon, most of it had been work related. They really hadn't had a chance just to relax and be together. And with her back in Vegas for most of every month, they really hadn't seen much of France outside of the Paris city limits.

This was the perfect opportunity to change that. And to put into effect a plan she'd begun to formulate ever since that day she and Ray had been out on the Vance Colton case and she'd inadvertently confessed a little more than she'd meant to about the canoe trip she and Grissom had embarked on during their honeymoon.

And considering Provence was home to 17,000 species of insects (nearly half the total number in France), including more than 2,300 species of butterflies, staging another outdoor bug hunting excursion there sounded like a good idea. At least in theory.

She'd been all set to arrive at CDG on Thursday afternoon, where she knew Grissom would be there to pick her up just as he always was. It didn't matter that she could make her way back to their Quartier Latin apartment perfectly fine on her own. But as her husband really did seem to sincerely look forward to it, Sara had long ago stopped protesting or insisting that it was a waste of time for him to come all that way just to get her. And truth be told, as silly and perhaps uncharacteristically sentimental as it was, part of her liked finding him waiting for her just outside Customs in the Arrivals Hall.

They'd have a nice quiet evening at home with Hank. Then the next morning, while he was busy with his Friday morning lecture, she would pack up all their necessaries so that they would be ready to depart on the afternoon TGV's Méditerranée run from Paris to Nice.

Claude Boutin, Grissom's ever-enthusiastic young teaching assistant, had already agreed to stop by later that day to pick up Hank. When Sara had called to suggest the arrangement, he'd been more than happy to take the dog for the week, particularly as his nephew Charles-Henri had become almost inordinately fond of the boxer ever since they'd taken him in while Grissom had been in the States over the winter holidays.

So everything was set.

Except she'd never managed to make it to Paris. Hell, Sara had been lucky to get out of Vegas at all.

First, with Ray away on sick leave after having been concussed ostensibly by the still as of yet unidentified Dr. Jekyll, the team was already one man short at a time when they needed all the help they could get. If she left, that would leave Nick, Greg and Catherine to cover Grave and whatever inevitable spillover there was with Days and Swing. And while Sara had made it through her fair share of three person shift coverages, she wasn't about to knowingly inflict a full straight week of it upon anyone else. But Catherine wouldn't hear of her changing her plans. In fact, she'd practically shooed Sara out of her office insisting that they were perfectly capable of making it without her for a few days.

Then Eyjafjallajokull happened.

The Icelandic volcano with its almost unpronounceable mouthful of a name erupted for a second time in less than a month that Wednesday right before she was to fly out. All across Northern Europe, the airlines, fearing that the tons of ash being continuously spewed into the atmosphere would clog the engine intakes of their planes, began delaying and then canceling flights. By four GMT that afternoon, all flights out of Paris and London Heathrow had been cancelled and the airports shut down indefinitely. The rest of France and much of Europe soon followed.

Sara had been lucky enough to catch the news before she'd gone on shift while the closures were still rumors. Been luckier still to have been able to find an available seat on a flight in and out of Aeroporto Leonardo da Vinci. Italy might be a little out of the way, but it was continental Europe at least. And with the trains still running with their routine punctuality, the ride from Rome to Nice would only be four hours longer than the trip from Paris she had originally planned.

So she just had to amend her plans a little. It was no big deal really.

Although breaking the news to Grissom had certainly been amusing.

* * *

While keeping up with all the lab's open cases was a Sisyphean task more than anything, Sara wanted to leave things as much in order as she could before she left. Which was why she could be found still at the lab at two in the afternoon that Wednesday not so patiently attempting to make her way through the mountain of paperwork pertaining to a string of armed robberies she and Greg had finally solved that morning.

As this wasn't exactly her favorite part of being a CSI, she wasn't the least bit upset when her phone let out an insistent chirp. It had barely given a second before she picked it up and quickly checking the caller id (not really in the mood to deal with Ecklie at the moment), answered with a sheepish, "Hey."

"I'm not even going to ask what you're still doing at work," came her husband's rather rueful reply from the other end of the line.

She gave him a shrug she knew he couldn't see and sighed. There was no point denying it. He always knew.

For a while she hadn't been able to work out how he did. She doubted he resorted to spying via GPS, though it was certainly possible. In the end, it turned out that more than a year away hadn't dulled Grissom's ability to be able to locate exactly where someone was calling from within the lab merely by observing the ambient noise in the background.

"I was going to call you. I just hadn't gotten around to it yet," Sara admitted. Which was true. She'd been meaning to call him all morning. It was just that time had managed to get away from her yet again.

Now that she had him on the other end of the line, and not all that interested in beating around the bush, she launched in with, "There's been a change of plans."

Grissom's accompanying "I'm not surprised," was exactly that, although his "You not coming?" sounded understandably disappointed.

So much so that Sara had to laugh, "Not _that _big a change in plans," in answer. "You aren't that lucky, Gil. Acts of God notwithstanding. Just a little change of plans. I managed to get a flight in and out of Rome," she explained.

"So I'm meeting you at the train station instead of the airport?" he asked in quick comprehension.

"Friday evening."

"What time?"

"You should get there around 7:30 or so."

"So plenty of time."

"Not really," she countered.

"Sara, they changed my Friday lecture to the morning almost three months ago."

"I know."

"It doesn't take that long to get to Paris Gare de Lyon," he argued.

"You aren't meeting me at the Lyon station. Gare de Nice-Ville."

With a bemused sort of echo Grissom asked, "Gare de Nice-Ville? As _in_ Nice?"

To which Sara couldn't help but chuckle again. "Yes, as in Nice, port city on the French Riviera," she replied. "I've already booked your ticket. You just have to pick it up. The train leaves at 1:45."

His subsequent, "That doesn't actually answer my question," wasn't any less puzzled. Nor was his uncharacteristically direct inquiry of, "Why am I meeting you in Nice exactly?"

To which she offered, "I thought you said you didn't have any plans for your holidays."

"So you made some?" he asked, the hesitancy even heavier in his voice.

"You said it was okay," Sara insisted.

"When?"

"Last time I was there."

"Why don't I remember this?"

"I dunno," came her still amused reply. "I thought you had a memory like an elephant."

But then her mirth abruptly turned to concern, causing her ask, "You aren't upset are you?"

"No," Grissom freely admitted. "Just surprised."

Sara was soon back to smiling again, as his next words were, "So when exactly were you going to share these plans with me?"

"Friday morning when you came back from your lecture," she supplied. "And don't worry. I already talked to M. Boutin. He's picking up Hank."

"He'll never forgive you, you know."

"Hank? Yeah, I know."

There was a pause as if Grissom was considering something. "Honey, isn't it a little early in the season to go to the beach?" he asked at last.

"We aren't going to the beach."

"Then where are we going?"

"You'll see," Sara said, grinning all the more before asking, the playfulness in the tease obvious even nearly 6,000 miles away, "Don't you trust me, Gilbert?"

"It isn't a matter of trust," Grissom countered. "I'm just not so sure you're the best person to be planning vacations. Considering your lack of experience," he added after a moment.

Sara scoffed noisily. "That's rich coming from you, _dear_. I just emailed you a copy of your itinerary and a list of what I need you to bring."

She could hear the click of keys in the background. "Yeah. I got it," he said after a while. "But let me get this straight. You really aren't going to explain why I'm packing our old camp clothes?"

"Nope."

"Or telling me anything else?"

"Apart from I'll be there to meet you at the train station in Nice on Friday and please bring everything on the list," she replied, "no. Anyway, I thought you liked surprises, Gil."

In fact, the way Sara saw it, it wasn't like the man could really complain considering that he'd pulled more than his fair share of them on her over the last year and a half. Although she did have the sneaky suspicion that when it came to surprises, her husband tended to hold to the belief that it was frequently far better to give than receive.

However Grissom didn't get a chance to further protest as Sara's phone chose that moment to interrupt.

"I've gotta go," she said. "Catherine's on the other line. But don't worry. It'll be fun. I promise."

Unsurprisingly, upon hanging up, she left a slightly perplexed Gil Grissom shaking his head as he gave her list a second look before setting about packing.

* * *

This certainly wasn't how Sara had imagined seeing Nice for the first time. Not how she'd imagined it at all, with her there all on her own. But she'd arrived not much past four that afternoon following fifteen uncomfortable hours of being sardined in various airplanes and then another ten hours split between four different trains, so that the last thing she wanted to do once she'd finally gotten there was to sit around waiting for three hours at the train station.

Desperate to finally be able to stretch her legs, and as unencumbered as she was with just the lightly packed tote she usually traveled with, she wandered south through the avenues of brightly many-hued houses knowing from her earlier researches that she would eventually reach _la Mer Méditerranée._

Once she did, she took her time strolling along the seafront boulevard La Promenade des Anglais, taking in as she did so on one side the long line of shops, museums, restaurants, parks, cafés and Belle Époque hotels that gave Nice its well-deserved picturesque reputation and the awe-inspiring vista of the brilliantly blue water that gave the Côte d'Azur its name on the other.

Unlike most beaches Sara had ever encountered, the ones that stretched along La Baie des Anges were not made up of stereotypically smooth, silty white sand, but rather fist-sized flat dark _galets,_ or pebbles, that were from what she'd read neither all that easy to navigate through or all that comfortable to lie upon. Neither of which prevented _les touristes_ and _niçois_ alike from partaking in one of the regions most popular of activities: sunbathing.

A pastime as it turned out of rather accidental origins. In the 1920's, after an unfortunate and equally unintentional case of sunburn, fashionista Coco Chanel returned to Paris from a holiday in the French Riviera dark skinned. Her devotees, of which there were many, admired the look so much that the tan trend took off from there, so that soon after, whenever the weather was fair and the sun warm and bright, people began to take to the beach and take off their clothes, sometimes nearly all of them, as in Nice topless sunbathing was a perfectly acceptable although not overly widespread custom.

But that day, it was a little too cool and too cloudy for all-out sun worshipping. That didn't mean Sara had the place to herself. Joggers, cyclists, skaters and dog walkers filled the wide avenue. And from the eponymous _chaises bleues_, the blue chairs, that like the stands of palm trees, dotted the walkway, people readily engaged in the region's second most popular pursuit: people watching. For the French Riviera had long been a place where those both famous and not had come to see and be seen.

Despite the bustle of_ La Prom,_ being there felt strangely peaceful all the same. Sara leaned up against a railing, her eyes closed, the better to relish the cool caress of the sea breeze on her skin that she found after all the dry Vegas heat, wonderfully refreshing. The salty tang in the air caused her breathing to slow so that she might draw in deeper lungfuls. The ever soothing smack of the waves upon the stone shore reminded her of the sounds made by the Costa Rican rain sticks she and Grissom had encountered in a several of the larger city markets there.

As the moments and minutes passed, that serene placidity grew ever more and more tempered and tormented by an ever-growing sense of anticipation. It was becoming ever harder and harder simply to enjoy the moment when part of her wanted nothing more than for time to hurry along to bring her and Grissom back together again.

At least it wasn't too much longer now.

In fact, when she stole yet another glance down at her watch, Sara was happy to find that with the twenty minute walk to the station before her, it was indeed time to head back.

After all, she had a train - and more importantly a husband - to meet.


	2. Two: Lovers Meeting

**Two: Lovers Meeting**

"Journeys end in lovers meeting."

_Twelfth Night_, William Shakespeare

By the time she made it back to Gare de Nice-Ville, the setting sun was just starting to stream through the great expanse of glass in the ironwork ceiling, filling the vast train terminal with a soft, warm, almost surreal glow and Sara, not knowing which end of the train Grissom would be disembarking from, chose an out of the way spot close to the exit to wait.

Or at least try to.

She didn't know how Grissom did it. Wait patiently. But then patience had always been more one of his virtues than her own. Still, how he managed to not look harried, hurried or impatient after having to deal with the inevitable delays of late flights and long lines at Immigration every time he came to meet her was genuinely beyond her comprehension. She was having a hard enough time not getting antsy with waiting for a train that was, like most of those throughout Europe, running on time.

Just before 7:30, _le Train à Grande Vitesse_ from Paris arrived; Sara craned her neck in hopes of catching sight of her husband. Streams of strangers passed by, intent as they were in pursuing their own final destinations, yet there was no sign of Grissom.

When there still wasn't after what felt like an inordinately long time, Sara drew out her phone to check for messages, fearing that perhaps he'd somehow missed the train and she'd missed his call.

There weren't any.

This impatiently impulsive act soon left her feeling like little more than some horribly desperate lovesick teenager, particularly as when she peered up from her anxious checking, she spotted it.

And him.

Even if this wasn't like some Hollywood movie moment where the crowd spontaneously parted to reveal the two meeting lovers, there was just no mistaking Gil Grissom in that hat.

No one on the planet had a hat like that. No one on the planet would wear a hat like that even if they did. And certainly not in fashion conscious France. But then fashion conscious was probably the last way that Sara would ever have described her husband. Not that she could talk.

But still, that hat.

Her lips twitched with the start of a smirk.

However out of place and incongruous as that hat might be, the sight of him wearing it was, ever more to her chagrin, something Sara had always found more endearing than anything.

It was just so quintessentially Grissom.

For if hats spoke volumes about their wearers, his used words like _practical_, _comfortable_, _quirky_; said he was at ease with himself and utterly nonchalant about what others thought; bespoke of being both well worn in and yet improving with age.

Upon numerous occasions over the years, Sara had threatened to replace his old straw hat with a proper Panama one. The kind they handmade in Ecuador (and had since the 1880's when they became the hat of choice of the men who helped build the Panama Canal). A hat made to last twenty years and which was so travel friendly it could be folded in half and rolled up so tight that it was no wider than the diameter of a man's wedding band. But knowing that hat of his was as much Grissom as his bugs and his love for her were, and those things being of the sorts she rather liked best about him, it was and always had been an empty sort of threat.

The hat notwithstanding, it was strange, as used as she was to seeing him when he showed up to meet her at the airport dressed in his usual school attire of a suit and tie, to see him now in the far more casual dress he'd often worn in Vegas: a simple pair of khakis and neat button down. Still, he looked good, even with his hair a little grayer than it had been and him carrying, along with the bags slung over his shoulders, that bit of extra weight he'd gained from his forays into fine French cuisine. But there was no mistaking the ease in his mien and demeanor; ever-present as it was even in the intensely focused and deliberate way he was attempting to patiently wend his way through the detraining crowd. It was, once he'd finally spotted Sara, a look immediately replaced by a big, bright, broad grin of recognition that more than lit up his whole face.

Still smirking from the sight of him, her own smile only widened as she waited, feeling in some ways even ever more impatient now for him to reach her.

But eventually he did and the two of them ducked together beneath one of the great stone archways further out of the way from the crush and press of the last of the crowd.

They stood there for a long moment, just looking at each other, something they often did these days upon their first meeting up again, filled as they always were with that same odd mixture of both pleasure and disbelief.

Thankfully, there were always the usual niceties to be observed, which weren't always such a bad thing, as they gave them each a chance to settle into the reality of being back together once more.

"Have you been waiting long?" Grissom asked.

Sara shook her head. "Not really. Train got in at four so I went to the beach for a while."

"How was it?"

"Nice. Different. Pebbles instead of sand," she explained at the inquiring look he gave her.

"And the water?"

"Pretty."

"Cold?"

"Dunno," she chuckled. "I didn't even think to try it."

Of course what she didn't say was that she'd been far too busy thinking and looking forward to soon seeing him to have had spared much thought for anything else.

She did however ask if he was tired.

To which it was Grissom's turn to be amused. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that question?" he said, knowing as he did, that even though she'd been traveling for more than the better part of an entire day, his wife seldom tended to sleep much while doing so. Or sleep much at all while they were apart.

"I was," she replied, "but I slept on the train."

For by the time she'd had to change lines in Milan, Sara had been so tired (the double she'd pulled just before leaving for the airport hadn't helped) that she conked out somewhere between there and Ventimiglia. She'd woken only minutes before they'd pulled into the station, feeling more than a little disoriented and with a painful crick in her neck that she still hadn't managed to rid herself of even hours later.

As her husband was giving her one of those plainly disbelieving and awed looks he seemed to wear a lot lately, she added in slightly hesitating French, _"__Ca en valait la peine juste pour te voir."_

_It was worth it just to see you._

"And you keep complaining that your French is getting rusty, dear," Grissom observed with a fond sort of smile which Sara gladly returned, pleased as she was by the compliment.

Like she frequently did, she'd taken advantage of all the hours she'd been cooped up on the plane with little else really to do to brush up on her French. Although on this trip, she did spend some time attempting to pick up some very rudimentary Italian. Even if all she was likely to see of Italy was the airport and the train station, it was always good to at least be able to say _please_ and _thank you _and be able to ask basic questions like where to find the bathroom.

"Shall we?" she asked, reaching to relieve Grissom of one of the packs he'd been carrying. But instead of handing it over, he took up her hand and placed a soft kiss into her palm before gently drawing her to him.

Screw propriety, he was thinking. The two of them hadn't seen each other for nearly a month now. Besides, it wasn't as if they'd been married all that long. And this was after all, France.

Sara didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

She did however miss the tickle of his beard as his cheek brushed hers. The month before, Grissom had chosen to go _sans barbe_, a decision owing more to the change in weather than a sudden desire to conform to the modern Parisian aversion towards male facial hair. Not that that missing diminished in any way the pleasure in the return of the feel of his skin on hers.

Resting her head upon his shoulder, Sara sighed, "God, it's good to see you."

Even though he wasn't quite able to return the sentiment aloud, as the words, like they so often did when it came to her, failed him, Grissom felt the same. It was just always inexpressible, being with her again. Even after all this time, he still didn't know the right words - any words - for that rush and warmth he felt each time he first caught sight of her, first held her again. In the end, he was simply and honestly too happy to see her for words at all.

For he'd missed her. How he had missed her.

Although he never missed her as much as he did in those moments when she first returned or was just about to go again. It was just too hard and his heart couldn't take it any other way. Ultimately, it was the only way he knew to cope with her being off in Vegas so much of the time.

So he only breathed in deeper the reassuring smell of her and held her harder.

Sara seemed to understand.

She said, beaming as they eventually broke away, "Even with you in that hat." Then, shaking her head in amusement, she added, "Funny, I don't recall it being on the list."

Grissom shrugged. "Seemed to go with the rest."

But his features turned slightly somber again as he peered into her face, concerned as he was despite all of her earlier protests to the contrary, to see the tiredness lurking at the edges of her smile.

"Rough week at work?" he asked.

Sara had been so busy in the days leading up to her coming, that apart from when they'd talked about her change of plans, they'd spoken very little over the last couple of days. And she'd certainly hadn't wanted to talk about work in the few minutes they had had. Nor did she want to talk about any of it now. Not the Jekyll connection in the Herson case, or the fatal fire she'd worked over the weekend that had proven to be anything but accidental, nor the string of armed robberies she and Greg had just solved, no matter how satisfying it had been to put that case to bed.

"The usual," she replied. And sadly, all that had been typical for Vegas. "But," she added, attempting once again to divest Grissom of his second bag. "It doesn't matter now.

"Come on. If we hurry, we can still catch the sunset."


	3. Three: A Nice Evening

**Three: A Nice Evening**

"The evening's the best part of the day,"

_The Remains of the Day_, Kazuo Ishiguro

_With apologies for the delay - and the length. _

Though not quite breathless from their brisk jaunt to the beach, the two of them, still beaming and nearly laughing from the race, sank eagerly - and thankfully - onto one of the white benches that punctuated the length of La Prom. For while they hadn't exactly ran, they'd had to rush to retrace Sara's earlier steps to get there in time.

It hadn't mattered that they'd been quick in their one stop along the way, doing little more than stashing their bags in their _chambre d'hôtel_. Although they did linger long enough for Grissom, once the door had shut behind them, to remove his hat and properly welcome his wife to the Continent.

In the end, the view had certainly been worth the hurry.

Just in time, they'd reached the shore to watch the sun bathe the sky and clouds and sea in pinks and golds and crimsons as it sunk below the hills and curving crescent of the coast to the west.

For a while they were lost in quiet contemplation, each relishing in the uncomplicated comfort of the moment, not because, or not merely because, they actually had the time just to sit and watch the sun go down, although Sara had to admit that was a very nice change from the fervid hustle and bustle of Vegas. Instead, it was the simple fact that they were actually sitting beside each other on the same bench that ultimately made it remarkable.

Eventually, Grissom broke the contented silence with an inquiring, "So, how long are we going to be in Nice?"

Which caused Sara to query in reply, "Bored already?"

He shook his head. "No, just curious."

"Just for the night."

"And then?"

She grinned. "You'll see."

"Since when are you so interested in surprises, Sara?"

"Like you can talk."

When he didn't seem to catch on to what she was referring to, Sara snickered and said, "This from the man who had his assistant teach him how to skate."

And without ever bothering to mention he was doing it until he'd insisted upon taking her to the weekly Friday night Paris roller derby the last time she'd been in Paris. After the couple of tumbles he'd taken the first and only time they'd gone before - Sara having been genuinely ignorant of the fact that the ability to skate wasn't one of her husband's many talents - she would have thought it would have been one of the very last misadventures he would ever be interested in repeating. But she should have known that Gil Grissom wasn't the sort of man to take a lack of knowledge or experience lying down - or flat on his back on the pavement.

Unsurprisingly, he made no reply to this.

He only slid his arm around Sara's shoulder. The once faint sea breeze having begun to blow cold rather than cool, she snuggled closer as they settled in to watch the dark descend in earnest as the day gave way to night.

And even surrounded as they were with all the hustle and bustle of an evening along La Promenade des Anglais, Grissom and Sara found themselves, like they so often seemed to do on these all too rare occasions they were back together again, equally lost in each other and utterly oblivious to the rest of the world.

After a while, Grissom murmured, "You were right about the train."

For at the very bottom of the email she'd sent him three days before, after the detailed list of things Sara had wanted him to pack, there'd been a brief postscript suggesting that he try to get a seat on the right side of the train for the ride down from Paris.

"Nice view?" she asked.

As honest as ever, he replied, "Yeah. Although not as nice as now."

* * *

The evening wore on.

But eventually, with neither of them having eaten much that day (a practically inevitable occurrence considering that train and airline cuisine wasn't exactly _três gourmet)_, the persistent rumblings of their stomachs set Grissom and Sara off in search of a promising _restaurant socca_ located in Nice's Old Town. For they had been informed by the friendly concierge at the front desk of their _hôtel_ that no visit to Nice was complete without sampling a plate of the regional specialty and this particular locale served _sans conteste la meilleure socca._

Except the place being a little off the beaten path, even with the two of them having paid close attention to the young man's directions, punctuated as they were with a great deal of hand gesturing and the mentioning of local landmarks that meant nothing to them, they managed to miss a turn or two among the narrow, labyrinthine streets and lose themselves among the warren of le Vieux Nice. So that after a good three-quarters of an hour of wandering among the brightly bedecked buildings, they were beginning to rue their decision to walk rather than take a taxi, the taxi having seemed so silly with everything in Nice theoretically never more than a twenty minute walk away.

Nearly ravenous and starting to despair of ever finding the restaurant, they emerged into a small _place,_ which wouldn't have been all that remarkable except that amongst the towering old mansions that surrounded the square stretched a cheery canopy proclaiming the premises beneath as _Fenocchio Matîre Glacier_.

Not that ice cream cafés were all that rare in France. Paris alone had had more than 250 of them in 1701, nearly a hundred years before the first ice cream parlor ever even opened in the United States.

Although Grissom had repeatedly passed by the stately premises of Berthillion, the capital's premier_ glacier_, without ever being drawn into the tea house-like interior, Fenocchio's, with its extraordinarily long line of gleaming freezer cases, was far more like what he thought an ice cream shop should be. And judging from how even at this late of an hour most of the tables and chairs surrounding it were occupied, he wasn't the only one it seemed to think so.

There was however still plenty of room to sidle up to the counter to get a better look. Which they both did, Grissom out of frank and impressed fascination at the lavish display, while Sara did so more because her husband's unexpectedly enthusiastic response amused her to no end. They scanned row after row of sunny, daisy-shaped markers imprinted in bold, jaunty letters with the names of the various flavors. And for those _qui ne parlent pas_ _couramment le français,_ at least not when it came to things like _marron_ (iced chestnut),_ confiture de lait_ (milk jam), _fleur de lait _(milk flower), _réglisse_ (licorice) and _avocat_ (avocado) flavored ice creams, there were models and plastic replicas representing the available _parfums _on display.

"All of this is ice cream?" Sara asked, honestly awestruck.

And it was. Exactly as the banner proudly proclaimed: _59 parfums glacée_, _35 parfums sorbet_, a total of 96 different flavors that would certainly give Baskin Robbins a serious run for their money. And the ice cream connoisseur pause.

There were the usual flavors of _vanille, chocolat, café_, and caramel; orange, _limette, ananas_ (pineapple), _melon, citrus and pomme_ (apple) sorbets; the slightly less conventional _calisson_ (cinnamon), Amaretto, Bailey's,_ érable noix de pécans_ (pecan and maple syrup), _chocolat gingembre_, _miel pignon_ (honey and pine nut), tiramisu, Malaga and zabaglione. Various _fleur parfumée_ included _violette, jasmin,_ and rose. And then there were the true _variétés exotiques_: _verveine, tourte de blette_ (Swiss or white beet tart) and black olive; lychee, cactus, beer, thyme and rosemary ices.

Having caught sight of that keen look in her husband's eyes, Sara knew he was tempted, more than tempted so she let out a long sigh of surrender before she asked, "Not worried about spoiling your dinner?"

Grissom scoffed. "The last time my mother tried that line on me I was five."

"So that's a _No_ then," she laughed, then in all seriousness said, "Well, in any case you've got a bigger problem."

He looked understandably perplexed at this. "What's that?"

"While they have it, you're going to have to try something other than vanilla."

For Sara had long stopped counting the number of times she'd observed Grissom stand before the ice cream case in the supermarket and for no less than the better part of five minutes be apparently lost in the contemplation of which flavor to try only to invariably end up placing a carton of vanilla in his basket.

"What's wrong with vanilla?" he asked sounding a little hurt.

"Nothing."

"Americans do eat three times more vanilla than any other flavor."

With an all too familiar sort of shake of the head Sara murmured, "I don't even want to know how you know that. Still," she pointedly maintained, "there is no way you're getting vanilla, Gil."

Seeming to yield to this prohibition, Grissom joined her at the counter and following Sara's slightly halting "_Puis-je avoir une chocolat piment, fleur d'oranger et lavande s'il vous plaît_," rattled off his order for _vanille poivre rose_, _coquelicot_ and _tomate basilic_, as the_ petites boules de crème glacée_ were not overly large, the better it seemed to encourage the sampling of multiple flavors.

As they sat down at one of the few free tables, Sara gesturing to his bowl said, "Feeling a little pink today?"

"Coincidence," he replied having just noticed the predominance of the _couleur_ _rose_ himself. Although the tomato-basil sorbet really was more orange than pink in his opinion.

Watching her take a tentative taste of the chocolate chili she'd ordered, Grissom was suddenly struck by a rather puzzling realization.

"I don't think I've ever seen you eat ice cream before," he said.

Which was true, the more he thought about it. Not once.

For her part, Sara's face fell for a fraction of a second before the faint hint of a smile returned to tug at her cheeks.

"The summers when I was growing up," she began with a tinge of distant reminiscence in her tone, "my father - _when he was sober_ - used to take us out for ice cream."

At the slightly taken aback look he was giving her, Sara shrugged and added, "It wasn't _all_ bad."

Grissom nodded in comprehension. Life was seldom ever that simple.

"I guess after he died, I lost my taste for it," she finished.

Indicating the bowl in front of her, he said, "You didn't have to, you know."

"Yeah, yeah I did," she rejoined. "It was time."

With a glance as fond and affectionate as any kiss or caress, Grissom reached across the table to cover her free hand with his own. Sara smiled, particularly at the feel of his wedding band sliding over her skin. She turned her own palm up and threading her fingers through his, gave it a squeeze.

"So?" she asked after a while, "how is it?"

"Not vanilla," he deadpanned.

Sara tsked; Grissom grinned.

"Actually, it's a nice change," he conceded. "You?"

"Yeah."

She nudged her _bol _towards him so he could sample for himself. He did the same.

At odds with the apparent peculiarity of the _parfums_, the flavors really were gastronomic wonders. The lavender had rich, smoky peppery undertones; the poppy was punchily floral and the orange blossom bore a sweet-tart citrusy tang, while the vanilla and pink pepper pleasantly tickled and tingled at the back of the throat and the decadent contrast of chocolate and piquant chili reminded them both of the Mexican-style hot chocolate they'd occasionally drunk in Costa Rica. As for the _tomate basilic_, Sara hesitated.

"I'm all for trying new things," she said, "but what on earth possess you to pick tomato?"

Grissom shrugged. "It is a fruit you know."

* * *

The two of them were having so much fun experimenting with the various _parfums de glacées_ they almost forgot about having a proper dinner. But in the end, they decided they should at least try.

Grissom made a momentary return to the counter while Sara disposed of what little remained of their ice cream, which wasn't much. Even the tomato had virtually vanished. At the curious look she was giving him when he rejoined her, he simply said he'd gone to ask for directions.

Something that seemed to amuse Sara to no end, causing her to quip, "I thought men never stopped to ask for directions."

Grissom didn't deign to reply.

This second set of _orientations_ seemed to do the trick. For less than five minutes later, they finally located the snug local hot spot right behind the large neoclassical styled Église Notre Dame du Port.

And hot spot it was.

Despite the fact that the restaurant was little more than a hole in the wall sort of place that they would have likely passed right by if they hadn't been looking for it, it was filled passed overflowing with _Niçoises _who were apparently enjoying the good food and good company with a great deal of good humor - warmed, too, as they were by the heat of the wood burning stove that stood center stage and in pride of place in the middle of the room.

Chez Pipo did not take _réservations._ It just wasn't that sort of place. And with its queue wending out the door, Grissom and Sara were unsurprised to be politely informed that there would be a short wait until they could be seated. Nor were they deterred. On the very rare occasions they'd eaten out together in Vegas, there'd always been a wait (Frank's being one of the few exceptions).

In time, a pretty_ serveuse _ushered them inside where they were promptly rewarded by the rich earthy scent of wood smoke that perfumed the place. With its pleasant aroma overpowering as it did even the ever-present haze of cigarette smoke that hung about the indoor dining rooms of nearly every restaurant in France, they decided to elect to sit inside that night amongst the cramped tables.

When the two of them confessed to being ignorant about what they should order, or even as to what socca was exactly, having truth be told gotten little more out of the clerk at their hotel than that socca had something to do with _pois chiches_, chickpeas, and yes, was_ végétarien, _the cheerful young woman, who was ever keen to practice her already excellent English, explained that the menu was simple, having only recently been amended to included a handful of other _spécialités régionales _to compliment their famous socca.

As for what _la socca_ was, she gestured to the ceramic oven, where almost as if on cue, an apron bedecked cook was retrieving a nearly two meter wide pan.

Grissom and Sara both had to fight back broad grins.

For what they had apparently earlier missed in translation was the simple fact that socca proved to be of all things a giant pancake on steroids.

Not that that bothered either of them in the least, especially as Sara had always had a particular penchant for pancakes. Still, the happenstance in that they had come all this way for the first meal they shared together in Nice to be pancakes tickled them both.

Of course _la socca_ wasn't your typical made with butter, flour, sugar, milk and eggs, then served with maple syrup sort of pancake. Instead, the savory rather than sweet, crepe-like batter, like that of the Northern Italian _farinata_, was made from chickpea flour and olive oil and seasoned with very liberal amounts of black pepper before being fired on a searing hot griddle until the outer crust blistered crisp.

The secret to Chez Pipo's success, the waitress informed them in confidential tones, lay in the unique flavor imparted by the restaurant's 300-year-old Biot oven.

"When it comes out, eat it right away," she advised. "You don't want it to cool. Just use your fingers."

Of course there was little other choice. As she with an almost mischievous grin of her own next informed them that there wasn't a single fork, knife or spoon to be found in the whole place.

As Sara's particular practice of vegetarianism didn't preclude the eating of fish, the rest of the menu proved to be the most vegetarian friendly example of _la France gastronmique_ they'd ever seen.

In order to tide them over while they waited for their _double commande de socca_ to come out of the oven, they ordered toast with _tapenade_, a Provençal dip made from a mixture of black olives, capers and anchovy paste, as well as _pissaladière_, a white, cheese-less, pizza-like tart made from a _pissalat _(more anchovy paste) and garlic, topped with sweet caramelized onions and studded with whole black olives.

This done, they settled in amongst the toasty, cozy chaos of their surroundings where it was wonderfully easy to get pleasantly lost among the hum and noisy buzz of conversations not in their native tongue.

The place couldn't have been more perfect if they'd planned it.

* * *

When they emerged from Chez Pipo a little over an hour later, it was with that sort of contented satiety that comes not just from eating well, but eating well in good company. And with both of them full and starting to get a little sleepy, they decided to head back to their hotel, this time electing to follow the shoreline, the better to avoid losing their way yet again.

The earlier mauve of evening had turned to dark and while the previous smattering of clouds had cleared, there were few stars to be seen. For the city, although nowhere near as garish and gaudily lit as Vegas, the neon embellished palm trees notwithstanding, was still far too alight for all but the brightest of stars to show. As for the slight sliver of the moon, it had disappeared into the horizon long ago.

So they'd been practically blinded by the bright spectacle they stumbled onto.

It wasn't like either of them had never seen a Ferris wheel before. But with its brilliantly blazing sunburst center, the enormous _grand roue _that dominated the gardens of La Place Masséna seemed so strangely incongruous among the colorful yet dignified antiquity of its surrounds that it stopped them dead in their tracks.

They stood there staring for a moment before Grissom chuckled softly to himself, "I guess they really did out-Eiffel Eiffel after all."

"What?" queried Sara, more than a little confused.

Grissom proceeded to explain how the first ever Ferris wheel had been built for Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The organizers, wanting to display a feat of American engineering might that would out Eiffel Alexandre Gustave Eiffel and the tower he built to serve as the centerpiece of Paris' 1889 Exposition Universelle, eventually settled on a design by an engineer from Pittsburg by the name of George Washington Gale Ferris: the 300 foot high vertically revolving wheel that would eventually bear his name.

"And they succeeded?"

"Well, considering there are fewer than three dozen replicas of the Eiffel Tower in the world, while nearly every fair, carnival and amusement park has a Ferris wheel, yeah, I'd say they did."

There was no disputing that.

"It really must have been something, back then," Grissom mused, "to be able to ride even higher than the tallest skyscraper."

To which Sara curious asked, "Have you ever ridden in one?"

"I can't say that I have."

It was her turn to laugh. "What, too sedate after all those roller coasters of yours?"

He shook his head. "No, just never had anyone to ride on one with," he replied before inquiring in turn, "You?"

Sara had to pause to think about it. "Actually no -" she admitted.

Grissom reached for her hand.

As he tugged her towards the empty queue, she stammered, "What are we...?"

"What does it look like?"

When she appeared hesitant, he added, "Weren't you the one who always said there was a first time for everything?"

* * *

Which was how the two of them ended up watching La Place Masséna's towering grove of palm trees retreat beneath them. To the north, spread the ocher rooftops of le Vieux Nice. Multitudes of stately sailboat studded the quay to the east. While to the south, the inky blackness of _la Mer Méditerranée _stretched as far as the eye could see.

"Impressive enough for you?" Sara asked.

"Not bad," he said, sliding a little closer to her on the narrow bench seat. "Although Ferris wheels weren't always so..."

"Private?" Sara finished.

"Intimate," he countered.

And Grissom was right, it was rather intimate. As it was both late in the evening and too early in the season for the mad crush of tourist Nice was frequently infamous for, there was no one in the cars ahead or behind them.

"No?" she asked, waiting for what she knew to be another of her husband's ever-erudite explanations. As his impromptu mini-lectures seldom descended into grandiloquence, Sara rather enjoyed them and always had. And had never stopped being amazed and impressed at his ability to discourse knowledgeably about almost any subject under the sun. It was good, too, to see some things hadn't changed.

Grissom didn't disappoint.

"Not if you figure that the first Ferris wheel sat 60 people, plus a conductor in each of its 36 carriages," he offered.

Sara did the math in her head. "Nearly 2200 people at a time. No, not really private."

"No," he agreed.

"That was too bad."

It was his turn to be intrigued. "Oh?"

Instead of answering, Sara leaned in and kissed him, full, long and breathtaking on the mouth. It caught him momentarily off guard, but only just, for he recovered soon enough to enthusiastically kiss her back.

Although he did look a little bemused when they broke away.

"Is this your way of telling me I've been talking too much?" he asked, not sounding the least upset. Having Sara kiss him was certainly the most pleasant way he knew of being quieted.

Her thumb having found the cleft in his chin that his being clean-shaven again made obvious, she shook her head and with her eyes and smile bright with genuine affection simply replied, "No, Gil," before kissing him a second time.

Then resting her head on his shoulder, she prompted, "You were saying - about the first Ferris wheel not being all that private..."

But Grissom had lost all interest in discussing _grandes roues_ whether past or present, or in talking much at all. He decided to save his breath for far less intellectual pursuits and kissed her.

Neither of them saw much of the scenery after that.

* * *

The motion of the car and the headiness of their subsequent kisses having left Sara feeling more than a little lightheaded, she took Grissom's arm as they disembarked and still flustered by his surprisingly rather public return of her affection, indicated the direction of their hotel.

"Maybe we should..." she suggested.

Although it had all been nothing more than an innocent bit of kissing, for Sara at least, the whole encounter on the Ferris wheel felt _três scandaleux_. For while the French penchant for being serial kissers meant that PDA's ran rampant - or at least had throughout Paris - love and lovemaking between the two of them had long been private.

It wasn't that Grissom wasn't a passionate man. He was and just how passionate would have likely led to more than a few raised eyebrows amongst his erstwhile colleagues. Still, he tended more towards being quietly affectionate in public and Sara hadn't expected that to change, not even now that they were married.

But then her husband was equally full of surprises.

And apparently Ferris wheels qualified as private or at least private enough.

As for Grissom, he only smiled in reply.

There was no more lingering or loitering on their way back to the hotel

* * *

Sara draped her jacket over the back of a chair and vainly attempted to try to massage away the stiffness that still remained in her shoulders from the nearly full day spent sitting in tight and cramped quarters.

"You still sore?" Grissom asked, having observed not just the nearly imperceptible wince she'd given as she'd shed her coat, but also the involuntary twinge there'd been each time she'd adjusted her tote on her shoulder throughout the night.

"Still? Yeah," she said and upon his motioning for her to have a seat on the bed beside him sank down on the coverlet. "I just slept wrong," she supplied at the concerned look he was giving her.

"And here I was thinking you were just getting old," he rejoined.

"You just remember that I'm still younger than you were when we first met," Sara countered.

Although she was far too tired and it was way too hard for her to be irritated by this jab while Grissom's fingers were so intently employed in working free the knots in her neck and shoulders.

And before long, she relaxed into the caress, mindless to anything but the feel of his hands on her skin as they slipped beneath her shirt collar to impart as they always did, that warmth and comfort and closeness that only he had ever given her.

Despite the fact that Sara would never admit to it, not even, or perhaps most especially not to her husband, in the long years before the two of them had gotten together she'd spent an inordinately large amount of time pondering over Grissom's hands.

They'd so seldom ever touched at all back then. Not that he touched anyone else really either. But the few times they'd had, the way his hands had been softer and warmer than she would have thought, gentle and reassuring too in those rare moments when he had taken up hers in his, had made her curious, more than curious as to what having his hands on her bare skin would be like.

She hadn't even come close to getting the actual sensation right.

Her head fell forward as she luxuriated in the attention. But the calm tranquility shifted into something else entirely when Grissom brushed the hair back from her neck and set about replacing the ministrations of his fingers with that of his lips.

At their brush and the way his hands were now bleeding their heat through the thin fabric of her shirt, Sara was tempted, sorely tempted to succumb.

But every once in a while, prudence held sway over passion and that blind, heedless euphoria of being back together again was replaced by practicalities.

"Gil," she sighed.

"You want me to stop?" Grissom asked.

"No. But I really need a shower."

Her husband's unexpected chuckle buzzed against her throat.

"I wasn't going to say anything," he began, "but since you mentioned it, dear -"

Shaking her head and with lips pursed in pique, Sara promptly stood and commenced rummaging through her tote in search of the soap, shampoo and other shower necessaries for her usual evening ablutions.

"It's a little cold," Grissom said as he rose to pull the curtains shut. "I'm going to run downstairs to see if I can get another blanket..."

But his voice trailed off as he turned to face his wife, suddenly utterly transfixed in watching her undress.

His gaze certainly missed nothing. Not the slight awkwardness in how she tugged her t-shirt over her head, still favoring as she did even after all this time her right side when tired. Nor the generous smattering of freckles along her chest and shoulders. Not the deft pop of the snap or the way she wiggled her way out of her jeans. His eyes, too, followed the arch of her spine, the curl of her hips, the long line of her legs all the way down to the curve of her calves.

His intent examination had probably amounted to less than half a breathless minute before Sara, now standing there clad only in her ever simple cotton bra and panties, caught his stare upon her.

And colored not out of embarrassment, but pleasure.

For no other man had ever looked at her like that.

She'd been leered at plenty, mentally undressed, visually dissected, examined and graded like a piece of meat. But the way Grissom's eyes drifted along her skin was something else entirely.

His bright blue eyes had deepened, darkened with desire and there was no trace of a tease or amusement about him now.

To which she gave him a playful smirk as she reached back to unclasp her bra and said, "I'll make it quick."


	4. Four: Early Birds

**Four: Early Birds**

"Oh, if you're a bird, be an early bird

And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.

If you're a bird, be an early bird—

But if you're a worm, sleep late."

_Where the Sidewalk Ends_, Shel Silverstein

It wasn't that Grissom hadn't been used to waking up alone. With Sara in Vegas at least three out of every four weeks, he woke up that way far more often than he'd like. He just hadn't expected to find himself doing so on that particular morning.

For there had definitely been a very soft, warm body beside him when he'd drifted off the night before.

While he hadn't been surprised to find Sara in bed by the time he'd returned from his what should have been short sojourn downstairs to fetch an extra blanket, he hadn't exactly expected to find his wife already fast asleep.

He probably could have woken her. Perhaps if he'd been a much younger and far less patient man he might have. But her breathing had deepened into that of the sort of sleep that comes of having finally succumbed to sheer exhaustion. He hadn't had the heart to wake her.

Besides, he'd mused, there would be plenty of time for such things later.

The practicality inherent in such thoughts however in no means interfered with the few moments he allowed himself as he prepared for bed to indulge in the highly satisfying consolation that with any luck he'd have that very next morning to linger more than a little overlong in bed with his wife.

As for that night, there'd always been a quiet sort of comfort to be found in watching Sara sleep. Well, not quite so quiet with her having just started to snore. Which had made him smile. It always did. Her fervent denials even more so. He'd missed it and them. Hank's loud, ponderous snores just weren't the same.

And he'd hoped the sound portended a restful night; perhaps a sleep perchance _not_ to dream.

For although she'd been far less fretful and prone to nightmares during the times in which they'd actually slept together these last eighteen months, he knew things were very different while they were apart. Work was work and Vegas still Vegas. And Sara still seldom seemed to sleep or at least sleep peacefully there.

Besides, he hadn't needed her to tell him that work hadn't been going well. Grissom knew it just to look at her.

He'd known even before. Except there had been so very precious little he could do from nearly 6000 miles away apart from listen and try to support and be there for her as much as all that distance allowed.

But now she was here, he could let her rest and did.

Gently, he'd eased the spare blanket over her, having thought as he did so that he should be relieved that she wasn't sprawled across the mattress and hogging the bed as she so often did. At least not yet.

Just before he'd shut off the light, he'd fancied, in response to the kiss he'd pressed into her still damp hair, that he'd glimpsed just the hint of a smile flutter over her features. Though when he'd slipped beneath the sheets to join her in sleep, he'd been relieved that Sara had only stirred and not woken. She had however seemed to settle deeper into his embrace all the same.

Home, that he was home, had been his very last thoughts, as with an ease he only knew when she was near, Grissom had himself been soon fast asleep.

So it had been disconcerting to say the least to roll over the next morning to find the space beside him vacant.

"Sara?" he called his voice still thick with sleep. "Honey?"

"Yeah?" she asked, wandering in from the bathroom, still dressed in her customary tank top and lounge pants and with toothbrush in hand, having apparently been summoned mid-brush. She was, he rued, certainly far more alert than he was feeling at the moment.

Which was to be expected. Firstly, she'd truly slept better and deeper and longer than she had in weeks, for the better part of a month really. Then even if she hadn't been actually out of bed all that long, Sara had been awake for a while.

Having awakened to the snug, peaceful comfort of Grissom's arms about her, the flutter of his breath on the back of her neck and the feel of his fingers having edged their way beneath her camisole to splay against her bare stomach, she'd been in no rush to surrender to the call of morning. Instead, she'd nuzzled nearer, closer, relishing the warmth. For it was the only time she really ever felt warm these days.

Thankfully, no one else had seemed to notice or at least hadn't yet commented if they had. She didn't know exactly how or why or when, but she'd found herself getting colder easier these days and more often than not, needing to wear a jacket both inside and out. Considering all the grief she'd given him about his year-round jacket wearing habit, perhaps it was a good thing her husband wasn't with her in Vegas.

Although she'd readily take the teasing in return for more mornings such as this one, and evenings like the one before.

Still having not being all that keen on rising, she'd reluctantly reached for her phone to check the time. While it wasn't yet light out, at nearly seven, it was far later than she'd thought.

And even if the plans she'd made several weeks before were starting to pale in comparison with the actual pleasure to be had in simply being back with her husband again, they did have an appointment that morning to keep. Whether Grissom knew about it or not.

But having not wished to wake him just yet, even if it wouldn't be for all that much longer, Sara had discreetly extricated herself from his side. Grissom had only snuffled and rolled over, predictably pulling the blankets along with him.

He was considerably more awake now, although he didn't look all that pleased at the prospect.

"I was just about to wake you," she said, giving him a grin and a swift cinnamon-scented kiss before retreating for a moment to the bathroom to rinse her mouth and toothbrush. Over the running water she called, "I thought about going down to pick up something from the market for breakfast but I didn't want you to think I'd disappeared on you."

Which was precisely what had happened to her the night before.

She'd been as good as her word and hurried through her shower only to find as she'd emerged from the bathroom, still damp and only wrapped in a towel, the room utterly empty.

Her momentary bemusement hadn't lasted long however. She'd soon recalled that her husband had mentioned something about going downstairs for a blanket. Still, he should have been back already.

She'd settled on slipping into her pajamas and had paced the room for a bit. Then giving into the tiredness she'd been fighting all night, she'd sunk sleepily on the bed. It wasn't long before the chill in the room had chased her beneath the sheets and even less time before she'd fallen asleep, so dead to the world that she hadn't even registered Grissom's return.

"By the way, where did you go for that blanket?" she asked. "All the way back to Paris?"

To which Grissom replied, "I was unavoidably detained."

She popped her head through the door to ask, "Oh?"

It was the truth. He'd genuinely been _unavoidably detained_. And for once not by dead bodies or even bugs. But rather by an involved discourse on the innate _supériorité_ of certain _dialectes français_.

It had all begun innocently enough and with the best intentions.

The fact that Sara seemed to get colder easier as of late (if her tendency to don a jacket more frequently these days was any indication) hadn't exactly escaped his notice. And with their _chambre d'hôtel_ being a tad on the cool side to begin with and the blankets on the bed a little thin, not to mention there was always his proclivity for stealing the covers (not that he would ever admit to it, even if it was just one of those things: Sara hogged the bed; Grissom the bedcovers), going down to the front desk to get another _couverture_ for the bed had seemed like a good idea.

All he had to do was go downstairs and request of the clerk at the desk, "_Je voudrais une couverture s'il vous plaît,_" who would then go and retrieve it and Grissom would return to their room with said blanket in hand even before Sara had gotten out of the shower.

What he hadn't counted on was the curiosity of his fellow guests.

It had been the same clerk who'd earlier assisted them in checking-in that manned the front desk that night, so he'd greeted Grissom with a friendly, _"Bonsoir, Monsieur Sidle, __et votre diner, ça c'est bien passé__?" _which had caused Grissom to grin and wish Sara had been with him. She'd have found it both funny and apropos after all the times she'd been addressed as _Madame Grissom_. And she did, as he related the incident to her that morning.

In any case, he'd chosen not to bother to correct him. Instead, Grissom had replied in his usual fluid sort of French, the ease and speed of which Sara not so secretly envied, that it had been _bon, três bon_ and had heartily thanked him for his recommendation. They'd exchanged a few more casual pleasantries before Grissom requested the blanket he'd come down for in the first place.

As the concierge disappeared off to retrieve it, a voice had piped up behind Grissom, inquiring in a heavily accented English, "You are American?"

As he'd turned to face his inquisitor, Grissom nodded and replied in French that he was. There'd been three of them, all men about or near his own age who'd come up behind him while he'd been speaking to the clerk. What they'd been doing there he never did find out. They all looked strangely and surprisingly impressed. At the elegance of Grissom's French as it had turned out. Or so the man who'd first spoken said.

Although Grissom could never pass for a native speaker, most _américains_ never bothered to even attempt to learn _le_ _français_ in the first place, let alone speak it with such sophistication. They simply employed what seemed to be the universal method of communication by English speakers: when not understanding or being understood, they simply repeated what they wanted slightly more slowly and a great deal louder in their own tongue. Usually to no real avail.

Grissom might always be an _étranger_, but at least he was one of the rare conscientious ones.

He'd taken the compliment with his customary good grace and patiently proceeded to answer their questions over how long he'd been in France, how long he was staying, his profession, where he'd learned French.

The three had been_ impressionnés_ to find he taught at the Sorbonne, although puzzled as to why anyone would study _l'entomologie_. Then had nodded knowingly when he'd explained that his tutor was one of _les immortels_ of Le Académie Française. That accounted for it, it seemed.

For while Grissom's French was good. Very good, they'd readily conceded, it wasn't _real_ French at all. Just _le_ _français parisien._ And there was, as Grissom had very soon discovered, quite a difference - at least a difference of opinion.

What had followed next was a quarter hour detailed expostulation on the subject. And Grissom, not wanting to however unintentionally injure the Gallic pride or give Americans a worse name than they already frequently had abroad, had been unable to find a polite way to extricate or excuse himself.

He hadn't been all that surprised really, having become quite familiar over the last eight months or so with the French penchant of very publicly airing their personal opinions on all sorts of matters, particularly to foreigners whom they saw as sorely wanting such instruction.

And while they might disagree over whose French was most French, most_ français_ held to the unshakeable fundamental belief, born of centuries where _le_ _français_ had long been the international language of _la bonne société_, that one didn't just learn the language when one studied French. No, these language lessons were no less than a _cours de civilisation_.

Mme Laurent, Grissom's indomitable doyen of a language tutor, had once summarized the general sentiment with a quote by Paul Morand, the celebrated French early modernist and _auteur_, who when elected member of l'Académie had said, "To write in French is to see flowing the waters of a mountain stream next to which all languages are muddy rivers; it is to live in a crystal palace."

In truth though, she'd also confessed that the dialect superiority wars were a little absurd. Despite all of l'Académie's efforts to establish and fix the French language, French wasn't a unified language at all. Even as late as the 1870's, it was actually was a foreign language for more than half of the inhabitants of France. And Nissart and other forms of Provençal Occitan which were now experiencing a resurgence after decades if not centuries of decline, were made up of various diverse dialects of their own.

Of course that didn't stop the French from arguing.

Hence why it had taken Grissom so long to return upstairs.

Upon him having finished relating all of this to her, Sara laughed, "Well, you can't say they weren't friendly."

Not that they hadn't usually found the French that way. In their experience the nation as a whole had a rather undeserved reputation for aloof rudeness. Something foreign to all they had encountered. That was one of the problems with stereotypes. More often than not, they were frequently dead wrong.

"You checking up on my work?" Grissom asked. For while he had been relating the misadventure of the night before, Sara had been sorting through the bag he'd packed for her.

"Never crossed my mind," she replied, gathering up a handful of clean clothes. "But I do have one question, Gil. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the thought, I really do, but why didn't you just call the front desk and ask them to send someone up with a blanket?"

That he didn't immediately answer didn't matter, the look on his face clearly indicated that the possibility hadn't even occurred to him.

Amused, Sara smiled and leaned in to kiss him.

His hands sliding around her waist the better to tug her onto the mattress with him, Grissom murmured, "Come back to bed, dear. It's early."

Her reply was a reluctant, "We're already running late."

"At this hour?" he asked nonplussed. "It's not even light out."

It wasn't that Grissom didn't often get up at or near the crack of dawn on a regular basis. Hank wasn't all that amenable to late lie-ins. But he really rather would have lingered in bed with his wife.

Although Sara seemed to be thinking of something else entirely, for she said, "You should be happy you weren't teaching at the Sorbonne in Louis IX's time. Lectures back then started promptly at five a.m."

Then at the openly dumbfounded way he was gaping at her, she smirked, "You aren't the only one conversant with_ l'histoire française_," before retreating to the bathroom to finish getting ready.

"Do I at least get to know why?" he called after her.

She paused at the doorway to reply, "Yeah, we've got to see a man about a boat."

To which all Grissom could do was echo, "A boat?"


	5. Five: In the Same Boat

**Five: In the Same Boat**

"It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went."

Henry David Thoreau

_For Sylvie. While perhaps not Mr. Darcy - and no, I still don't get the whole obsession with Colin Firth in a wet shirt - I hope this doesn't disappoint your imaginings. _Bon voyage_ and _mille mercis _for continuing to endure and patiently correct my ever-horrid French. _

_

* * *

_

Although it was Saturday and _bright and early_ in France frequently meant no earlier than 10 a.m., the traffic along the A8 was the usual madhouse.

And perhaps it was understandable that after having been more away in Vegas than not for the last seven months, Sara had when she opted to drive that morning failed to take into account the French penchant for turning any stretch of even remotely paved road into a practice course for their very own unofficial Grand Prix. It was an oversight she was seriously ruing at the moment.

For the usually polite, well-mannered _français_, gastronomic gourmands and firm believers in_ liberté, égalité, fraternité_ were nothing less than certifiable madmen and maniacs behind the wheel. Speed limits, road signs and cautions were treated merely as suggestions. Often with a cell phone in one hand and cigarette in the wildly gesticulating other, _les_ _automobilistes_ practiced hands-free drivingmore than anything else and all at breakneck speeds. Here, too, motorcyclists, like those in Paris, simply made their own lanes.

So unsurprisingly it took nearly all of Sara's concentration to avoid being run over, run into or run off the road. And while the last place she'd expected to use what she'd learned was on _une autoroute française_, she was starting to be thankful that Ecklie had recently mandated a defensive driving refresher for all the CSI's in the department.

Needless to say there wasn't exactly a great deal of conversation in the car that morning. It was just safer that way.

For his part, having never seen Sara drive stick before, as both her Prius and the department SUVs in Vegas were automatics, Grissom regarded the adroit way his wife managed to change gears, downshift and keep track of the traffic all without missing a beat with more than a hefty measure of awe.

Having still as of yet not been informed of their ultimate destination, he settled on sitting back and attempting to simply survive the ride. He'd been surprised but not all that concerned when they blew past the Cannes exit. Hadn't exactly expected them to get off at Fréjus or Saint-Raphaël. But when they only continued further and further inland beyond the turn off for Saint-Tropez, he couldn't keep his baffled curiosity quiet any longer.

"Sara," he began a little uneasily. "Wouldn't boats be in the other direction?"

Her response of "It's not that kind of boat," however, only left him even more confused than before.

Sara shook her head at the patently perplexed stare he was now giving her and smirked, "And to think I thought you trusted me."

_Trust me_. Few scarier words were ever heard.

Although the truth was Grissom did trust his wife. Had long before she'd even come to Vegas more than a decade ago. In fact, it had been how he'd first spoken of her to the rest of the team when they'd wondered who the hell Sara Sidle was: "She's a CSI out of San Francisco. She's a friend of mine, someone I trust."

And Sara had certainly never given him reason to regret that trust. So yeah, he did trust her mind, body, heart and soul. He just really wasn't all that accustomed, fond or comfortable being on the receiving end of surprises.

Seeming to sense this, Sara took advantage of a brief lull in traffic to turn to him and say, "Oh come on, Gil. You're the crack investigator. You saw the packing list. What does the evidence tell you?

"You must have had some idea if you brought that hat," she grinned. "So why don't you tell me. Or have your powers of deduction been that seriously diminished by less than two years away?"

Grissom didn't stoop to answer this. Instead he said, "Has something to do with bugs."

"See, told you it was obvious."

"I would hope so. I don't think I want to know what you would have wanted to do with the nets or collecting boxes otherwise. But that doesn't actually answer my original question."

As he was going to find out all about it soon enough and with it perhaps better not to torment or try her husband's almost legendary supply of patience any further, Sara opted to be more forthcoming than coy.

"You remember me telling you about the Vance Colton case from last month?" she began.

"Ex-CIA agent found dead in the river?" he replied, still not quite sure how it was related.

"Yeah."

Except Sara suddenly realized that even if that conversation between her and Dr. Ray about the inherent difficulty in sinking canoes had been what had initially got her thinking about this whole excursion she and Grissom were about to embark upon, continuing with this explanation would mean her having to confess to her husband that she'd inadvertently let slip to Langston a little more than she'd meant to about that canoe trip she and Grissom had taken during their honeymoon. Which probably wasn't the best of ideas.

It wasn't that she thought Grissom would be upset, even if they both tended to keep mum about the more private aspects of their relationship and always had. It was more the ribbing she was likely to get from Grissom if he knew about her slip.

Not that she'd told Ray much of anything in the first place. Although what little she had had been enough to earn her a barely smothered suggestive sort of smirk from the good doctor.

Besides, she and Grissom hadn't been up to anything scandalous. It had all been perfectly innocent, well mostly, as there wasn't all that much actual mischief you really could get into in a canoe.

With a good half hour in the car to go and fully cognizant of the fact that her husband would just wait for her to continue, there was no way to just leave it at that, so she settled on saying, "Anyway, there was a canoe involved and I realized it's been a while since you and I've been out. And as we usually seem to have a good time..."

Of course there had been more to it than just that, apart from what she'd said to Ray. The arresting sentiments in that letter Grissom had sent her a few weeks before had jolted the whole canoe trip idea from a purely theoretical into not only a practical but desirable solution to the question of what to do for Grissom's spring school holidays.

Knowing all too well her husband's - and her own for that matter - predilection for peace and quiet, as well as being able to do things on their own time and ways and pace, she quickly forwent any thought of an organized tour or some of the more wildly adventurous white water trips that traveled through the Verdon Gorge, even if the place was the French answer to America's Grand Canyon. Instead, with its far more sedate drift, an unhurried canoe trip down the Argens River seemed decidedly more their style. Besides, Sara wasn't all that keen on trying to compete or keep up with the college crowd.

From the fond way Grissom seemed to be regarding the prospect, it had been the right choice.

"A very good time," he replied, thinking as he was back to their trek via canoe through the mangrove forests of Costa Rica. While it hadn't been the last time they'd been out together, it had certainly been one of the most memorable. Of course honeymoons did tend to be that way - memorable to say the least.

"Should be plenty of bugs out this time of year," Sara added then qualified, "but I thought we'd pass on the overnight outdoor camp-outs and fishing this time."

"You have something against fishing?"

"No. I just like to eat."

For however peaceful and almost Zen-like the experience had proven to be, Grissom's first and last foray into fly-fishing hadn't exactly been a success if you were interested in the actual catching of fish.

The multitudes of Renaults, Peugeots, BMWs, VWs and Mercedes along _la route_ steadily beginning to thin as they continued further and further west and further and further it seemed from civilization proper finally gave Grissom and Sara the opportunity to enjoy a bit of the scenery.

The mountains continued to retain their Mediterranean character as they journeyed deeper into the rich lush verdancy that had led to the _Départment du Var_ being best known as _la_ _Provence Verte_, the green Provence. Pine trees towered; the canopies of cork, evergreens, oak and mimosas cast their shade. Even where the _garrigue_ or limestone moors were so stony as to be inhospitable to large numbers of the hardiest of gorse and thistles, tiny pockets of thyme, lavender and wild rosemary could be found peeping between the rocks.

They left the A8 behind with very little regret. Recalling that the directions she'd pulled up on MapQuest before leaving Vegas had indicated that a complicated series of twists and turns lay ahead, Sara passed her iPhone over to Grissom who unsurprisingly proved to be a fairly competent navigator and they managed to reach the pretty medieval village of Entrecasteaux a little before ten.

With its narrow cobbled streets lined with an impressive collection of 16th Century houses and a striking 17th Century chateau, it seemed a shame not to be able to stop and wander about for a bit, but Sara however reluctantly had to insist that they had a schedule to keep.

By the time they reached the neatly marked car park for the canoe rental agency Sara had selected both she and Grissom were beyond thrilled to finally be able to get out and stretch their legs, especially after being trapped for nearly two hours in their rented VW Golf.

As they headed off in search of the office, Sara pointed to a truck trailer neatly piled with canoes and said with the snarky sort of smirk used for pointing out the obvious, "See, Gil, boats."

They must have made quite a picture, the two of them, Sara adjusting her sunglasses; Grissom his ubiquitous straw hat and each of them dressed in their old camp clothes or what was left of them. Most of what they had worn in the rainforest they'd managed to wear out or into rags by the time they'd left. Still, Sara had slipped on an old pair of convertible khakis and partially buttoned a camp shirt over her tank top. Grissom dressed much to match. Neither of them really seemed to care that they weren't the least bit fashionable. Although Sara did shake her head for the thousandth time about the hat.

"You might want to keep an eye on that," she warned, motioning to his said not quite offending, yet bemusing all the same headgear. For he'd almost managed to lose it while out fishing during their honeymoon more than a year before.

Sara couldn't recall exactly how the hat had ended up in the water in the first place, but they'd both gone tromping through the shallows in attempts to catch it before the current completely whisked it away. By the time Sara had snatched it up, they'd each been fairly well soaked and had needless to say made enough of a ruckus to frighten off all the fish. And that was before Sara hadn't freely handed the hat over.

"You were lucky to get it back last time," she insisted. "And there is no way I'm going after it again, not with how cold the water is here."

"Is that why you didn't have me pack your swimsuit?"

"That water's not even 50 degrees. Going for a swim is the last thing on my mind."

"That's too bad," Grissom replied.

It was Sara's turn to goggle after him.

* * *

In preparation for departure, Grissom and Sara were loading up their supplies for the day in the series of watertight containers the rental group provided when he paused to regard the bottle of rum his wife had slipped inside with a rather dubious eye.

"Didn't anyone ever warn you that boating and alcohol don't mix, dear?" he teased.

She gave him a pursed lipped _you know me better than that_ glare before replying, "It isn't for me - or you. _Pour les papillones_, _chéri_."

Although peach schnapps seemed to be the preferred imbibition of choice for the Lepidopteran set.

"Except," Grissom replied, "I don't recall seeing you pick that up at the market."

For despite their hurry that morning, that hadn't been a good enough reason to skip _petit déjeuner_. So they'd made a brief stop at Nice's famed Cours Saleya before heading out, rubbing elbows as they did so at that hour in the market more with the eagle-eyed gossiping local housewives than tourists as they picked up fresh _beignets aux pommes raisins secs _for breakfast as well as all the accouterments for a hearty lunchtime _pique-nique_.

"Didn't. Duty-free shop in Rome," she supplied.

He gave her an impressed, "Thought of everything, I see."

To which she replied with a matter of fact, "Learned from the best."

Gesturing to the boat and river and trees all around them Grissom asked, "So how did you manage to arrange all this from Vegas? More dinner party connections?"

Even if they weren't all that fond of having to attend the various and frequent obligatory soirées that came as part of Grissom's guest lectureship, neither of them could deny that the events and the requisite socializing they entailed did come in handy from time to time, particularly when you wanted inside information or to be able to get your hands on highly coveted and hard to find items such as tickets to the Opera Bastille. But not this time.

With another smug sort of smirk, Sara said, "Didn't you know, Gil, Google is a girl's best friend."

Which prompted him to lean in to say, with equal parts _gaieté et sincérité_, "_Je t'adore_."

_I adore you._

It hadn't taken Grissom all that long to discover that there were just some things easier to convey in _la langue français. _For while it wasn't that he worried or had any doubts when it came to Sara's feelings for him, or even his own for her, he was still relatively new at expressing those sorts of things out loud. It was a habit, he supposed, not unlike his long practiced custom of choosing to pull from his ample repertoire of notable quotations when wishing to make a point or better express himself.

In any case, Sara didn't seem to mind, for she beamed at him for a long moment before murmuring in return, "Definitely sexy, even if it isn't the weather."

Grissom gave her a genuinely baffled expression by way of reply, but as the young owner and local tour guide was on his way back with a water-resistant map and two paddles in hand, she only mouthed, "Tell you later."

* * *

With the last of their mandatory Canoeing Basics 101 lectures complete, Grissom gave her a grin as he handed Sara her paddle. "Perhaps I should steer this time," he said.

Precipitating the more than a hint of a challenge in Sara's subsequent, "Are you complaining about my driving?"

"Your driving is just fine," he countered. "It's your steering I'm concerned about."

"At least_ I _never almost sunk a canoe."

"You really can't sink a modern canoe."

"Yeah, so I've heard. But then how did we end up _in_ the river?"

To this Grissom didn't seem to have a ready rejoinder.

Even if the answer was easy, if difficult to pronounce: _Rhodopygia hinei_.

The vivid, almost blood red bodied dragonfly had seemed to enjoy taunting them that day in Costa Rica, constantly hovering just out of reach like most Odonata species were wont to do. Grissom had made one lunge too many and...

Back in the forested woodland of _la_ _Provence Verte_, with it very rapidly becoming apparent that no response was likely to ever be forthcoming on her husband's end, Sara simply handed him the small waterproof camera they regularly used for their various riverine adventures with a, "I suppose I can trust you with this this time."

"Of course," he said with that same sort of abject cluelessness he'd just displayed about the canoe.

With a heavy sigh and equally ponderous shake of the head, Sara muttered, "_Vita longa, memoria brevis_, Gilbert?"

"Been brushing up on your Latin while you've been gone, dear?" came his rather blithe reply.

"Get in the boat, Gil."

Gil Grissom knew when it was best to do as he was told.

* * *

It didn't take long for the two of them to settle into the customary easy rhythm that came from more than a few excursions out on the water together. Not that they really needed to focus on paddling all that much. The current was strong enough to take them all the way back to _la Mer Méditerranée_ if they'd wanted to go that far. But they were more than content to indulge in the simple pleasures of an unhurried journey.

They certainly couldn't have asked for better weather: sunny, but not hot, with the tickle of a breeze and the sky that brilliant blue Provence was so famous for. And with it yet being early spring and well before the cramped and chaotic heights of the August tourist season, apart from the occasional grey heron or flash of orange and blue of a brightly hued kingfisher, they practically had the river to themselves.

All the better to enjoy the companionable solitude. And all the easier to leave the rest of the world, particularly Vegas behind.

Above their heads the sun dappled gold amongst the leaves. It sparkled diamonds on the surface of water so crystalline you could make out the pike, perch and carp swimming beneath the nearly perfect reflections of tall grasses, silvery willows and stately poplars.

All around them, it was stillness surrounded by sound, of river rush, the flutter and flap of wings, the riots of song from birds more often heard than seen, the constant chirr of crickets.

They originally mistook the sleek reddish-brown shape floating effortlessly along the shore for an otter. But drifting nearer, they soon discovered it to be _Coypu myocastor_, what the French called a _ragondin_, but was more frequently known as anutria, a meter-long semi-aquatic rodent who was practically as far away from home as they were. The species, originally native to South America, had been brought over, introduced and farm-raised in France for its highly prized rich velvety grey under fur more than a century before.

Grissom dealt with his disappointment in being several months too early for the annual summer concerts of _les cigales_ with his usual aplomb. The fact that he'd manage to spot, or rather catch a whiff of - although how anyone could miss the smell of carrion it used to attract their bluebottle pollinators - a remarkable example of an asclepiad hadn't hurt.

There was certainly no dearth of insects, particularly if one chose to linger amongst the tall grasses of the calm culverts where battalions of dragonflies regularly buzzed.

Upon first arriving in France, Grissom had been surprised and more than a little disappointed to find that the French weren't any more fond or open-minded about bugs than folks were back home. By now that open-mouthed dumbfounded stare he'd encountered upon informing the men he'd run into in the lobby the night before that he was _un entomologiste_ was pretty _de rigueur_ or _normale _as they tended to say in Southern France.

It didn't matter that le laboratoire d'Entomologie du Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle housed more than twenty insect specimens for every one of Paris's two million human inhabitants. Perhaps just not quite enough time had passed since the 1860's when a particularly pernicious infestation of _Phylloxera _beetles killed off virtually every vine in France.

When he'd lamented as much to her, Sara had confessed to finding information on the best places to go for insect hunting in France dishearteningly lacking. And for once, even her trusty Google hadn't had all that much to say on the subject.

Of course what baffled Grissom most was that the French didn't eat them. Although arthropods such as snails, lobster and crab regularly featured in _la cuisine français_ and the French weren't the least bit shy about eating _cuisses de grenouille_ (frog legs), _cervelle_ (brains), _tripes_, _mole_ (marrow), _ris de veau_ (sweetbreads),_ foie gras_ and a host of other delicacies that would make even many a non-vegetarian American pause. During one of the sieges of the city, when even _cheval _or horsemeat was hard to get, _parisiens_ even went so far as to dine on cat and dog and even rat, although only the rich could afford the spices and seasonings to make the latter palatable. But entomophagy in any form was practically unheard of.

The French _colons_ of Algeria may have brought back with them plenty of the local culture, customs and cuisine, but not it seemed the consuming of _insectes_ like _locusts,_ despite their high protein and nutritional values.

While Sara was usually a patient and active listener when it came to all things Grissom, the mere thought, let alone talking about eating insects always made her a little green. The one and only time she'd ever done it, and chocolate covered grasshoppers weren't really all that exotic of bug fare, had been more than enough for her and had been the end of her ever betting against Grissom.

So after the first five minutes or so, she let her mind begin to wander. At first, it seemed to go unnoticed. One of the benefits of sitting in the front of a canoe was that it made glassy-eyed lack of interest hard to spot.

But even Gil Grissom wasn't that clueless. Not even in the midst of bug talk.

Reasoning that perhaps he'd dulled his wife into stupefaction, he opted to rouse her by sending a cascade of water down his paddle and along the back of her exposed neck.

It certainly had that effect.

For Sara spun on him spluttering, "You did that on purpose!"

He made no reply, mostly because he was too busy trying to hide his own smirk beneath a carefully constructed façade of innocence which didn't fool Sara in the slightest. She knew that he knew that they both knew enough about how the principles of cast off worked for his silent disavowal to be the least bit credible.

Still, despite Sara giving him a look that plainly screamed _You know I will,_ Grissom dared to persevere with his guiltless act.

So in a tone heavy with one last warning, she said, "You are familiar with the phrase, 'Up a creek without a paddle,' aren't you, Gil?"

At his wordless riposte of _Go ahead, _she next replied, "Fine, two can play at that game," and splashed him soundly.

It wasn't long before they were drenched from head to toe.

Not that that stopped either of them.

Their tomfoolery continued to escalate until Grissom raised both his hands and paddle in the air in surrender, shouting, "Whoa, truce. Truce."

"Worried?" queried Sara. "Weren't you the one who keeps maintaining that you can't sink a canoe?"

"Sink no, capsize, yes," he corrected.

"And we'd be any more wet now how?"

As there wasn't much point in arguing this or that after all the commotion the two of them had been making, they really weren't likely to see much of anything for a while, and with it being well past noon, a break seemed to be in order. Grissom steered the canoe towards a promising bit of sunlit bank.

The two of them hopped out into the calf-high water to tug the boat ashore, adding soaked socks inside damp boots to their already long list of water-induced discomforts.

Grissom suggested lunch, but Sara was still a little squeamish after their a little too recent discussion about dining on insects. That and she really wanted to get out of her wet clothes more than anything.

Which presented a bit of a problem. For while she should have known better from what mischief had occasioned during their previous canoe trips, she'd neglected to pack a spare change of dry clothes or even towels.

At least in Costa Rica the weather and the water had been considerably warmer. In fact, though she would never admit it to her husband in a million years, their unexpected dip that day had actually been quite refreshing after all the heat of the morning.

"I thought," rued Sara as she peeled off her sopping over shirt and draped it atop a nearby tree branch to dry in the sun, "I told you I wasn't planning on getting wet today."

Grissom shrugged before slipping off his own shirt to do the same. "'The best laid plans...,'" he intoned with all the usual loftiness he reserved for quotations.

"Yeah, I know. But you started it. And don't you even think about it," she cautioned, having registered that her husband was currently holding their camera. Not often prone to vanity or no, Sara didn't relish the idea of being captured looking as she imagined she did like a half-drown rat.

"Wouldn't dream of it, dear," he returned with a smile, the thought honestly having not occurred to him until she mentioned it.

But as they still had several days of traveling together yet to go and the Golf wasn't that large of a car, not to mention he still had no clue where they were actually supposed to be going in the first place, all coupled with him being all too aware of what his wife's usual forms of payback entailed, Grissom choose to prevail upon discretion, that better part of valor.

Instead, as Sara was shivering slightly from the sudden chill of the water, he came over and attempted to warm the goosebumps from her bare arms with his hands.

A soft smile tugged at her lips. It was usually hard for her to stay irritated at her husband for long, especially when he was touching her like that. So she simply closed her eyes and relished in the long awaited contact of skin on skin.

"I love you," she sighed.

Thinking her far off tone presaged something more, Grissom asked, "But?"

When she next peered up at him, her eyes relayed the same simple message her next words conveyed: "No buts. I love you."

Grissom grinned. There were just some things that were nice to hear, even if you already knew them.

Nice too he mused that all the wet had rendered the tank top she was currently wearing far more revealing than concealing.

"Although," Sara said after a moment, "I'm starting to think we really would have gotten less wet if we'd actually gone swimming."

Then, not the least bit ignorant as to the way her husband was admiring her, she added, amused and rueful all at once, "And you don't look very sorry."

He didn't and wasn't.

And considering that she was neither immune nor oblivious to the observation that as he'd been as thoroughly soaked as she, Grissom's thin, white cotton undershirt concealed even less, Sara found she wasn't really either.


	6. Six:Another Unexpected Change of Plans

_Continued from_ In the Same Boat

**Six: (Another) Unexpected Change of Plans**

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving,"

Lao-tzu

Night in Castellane proved to be a far different prospect than night in Nice. Not that either of them were about to complain. Sara had more than enough of the noise, bright lights and busyness back in Vegas.

If they had chosen to come three months later, when the tourists swelled the village population from not quite two to nearly twenty thousand, it would have been a far different story. But that night, it was calm and peaceful, all the better for enjoying a long, leisurely postprandial stroll through the picturesque hamlet which curled its way around the _rivière Verdon_.

Particularly as they practically had the streets to themselves. _Dîner_ at the hotel restaurant had largely been very much the same: a quiet _tête-à-tête_ before a roaring blaze of the stone fireplace. It was a welcome change.

They'd certainly needed the walk, for they'd feasted like kings in fine French fashion. After a full day on the river they'd been hungry and with it nearly eight-thirty by the time they'd finally reached Castellane, their earlier _pique-nique_ along the banks of the Argens was a long distant memory.

Very early on in their time in Paris they'd learned that after the frequently two hour long _dîners_ _au restauran_t, post-meal rambles were a virtual necessity to proper digestion or digestion at all. Apart from the practicalities, however, they were always a pleasant way to pass an evening.

Oftentimes, the two of them walked so close to each other that their hands brushed. Although more often these days with her so much away, Sara took Grissom's arm or he her hand. That night they'd happily strolled among Castellane's narrow cobblestone streets long after the church bells had chimed their last at ten.

Grissom let go of his wife's hand only long enough to hold open the front door of their hotel. Although he was wearing a strange sort of smile as he did so, causing Sara to inquire with an uneasy sort of grin of her own, "What?"

"I was recalling M. Benoît's advice. The guide at the canoe place," he clarified. "Before we went out, he told me to make sure to always let the lady go first."

"That was chivalrous of him, I guess."

"I don't think_ chevalerie _was what he had in mind," Grissom replied.

Knowing there was more to the story than what he was telling, Sara merely waited for her husband to continue.

Which after a moment he did: "Turns out there's a Provençal saying: 'When a viper bites a man, the man dies. When a viper bites a woman, the viper dies.'"

Sara nodded in comprehension. "Hence 'ladies first' then."

"According to Benoît, when you're out in _les bois_, yeah."

"And I thought the French were into chivalry."

"Apparently not upon threat of death."

"Or snakes," she laughed.

Unfortunately, Sara's merriment didn't last long. For her phone chose that moment to buzz, indicating she had a new message. While she had only intended to give it a hurried check before returning it to her jacket pocket, the text stopped her dead in her tracks. That her face fell for the first time that day, didn't escape Grissom's notice.

When she continued to stay still and quiet, he asked concerned, "Work?"

Sara shook her head. "Travel agent. I was hoping to go straight from the train station to the airport on Wednesday. But because most the airports are still closed because of the volcano everyone is taking the train instead. Overnight Monday is the latest train she can get me from Nice to Rome."

Both were all too aware that it was Saturday, nearly Sunday already.

While her words indicated that she was trying not to be upset about the whole thing, Grissom could plainly hear the disappointment when Sara continued on with, "The car is paid up through Friday. You might as well use it. I can give you a list of hotels where I made reservations."

"May I?" he cut in, gesturing to her phone.

Although not knowing what he wanted it for, Sara readily handed it over. Grissom didn't bother to stop to explain either. Instead, as he moved towards a deserted corner in the lobby, he simply typed in what he was searching for, scrolled through the screen until he apparently found it, dialed, greeted whomever was on the other end with the customary, "_Allô_," and proceeded to continue his conversation in that rapid and fluid French of his that Sara couldn't help but both admire and envy.

She'd long ago stopped trying to keep up with his progress, possessing the distinct disadvantage of not having nearly as many opportunities to practice as her husband did, nor the redoubtable Mme Laurent as a tutor. While his_ français _might not be _parfait_, he certainly made it sound easy. Not that Sara was surprised. She'd always known that once Grissom set his mind to learning or doing something, he did it.

And she found as she vainly attempted to follow his exchange, that she really did have to agree with Greg, especially when said French was being spoken in Grissom's rich deep voice.

When Grissom finally clicked off, Sara chuckled as much to him, much to her husband's obvious bemusement.

"When I first came back to Vegas," she proceeded to explain as the two of them resumed their way back to their _chambre d'hôtel_, "Greg used to tease me that you and I could be talking about the weather in French and it would still sound sexy. I think he meant me more so than you," she qualified with a smirk, "but he does have a point."

"Really?" queried Grissom, not entirely sure if she was being serious or not. It really didn't matter either way. Even if it happened to be at his expense, it was more than worth the teasing to see Sara _sans soucis, _smiling and playful again.

But sincere she was as she insisted, "Yeah, really."

Why that was so inconceivable she didn't know. After all, _la langue française_ had always been a language _pour l'amour et des amoureux_ - for love and lovers. But at the moment, Sara was far more interested in what he'd been doing on the phone than pursuing the point.

"So what was that all about?" she asked.

"SNCF, French railways," he supplied, motioning for her to precede him up the stairs.

"Yes, I know. But you do realize that they have a press to speak to someone in English function?"

He shrugged, "Habit."

"Show off," came Sara's wry retort as they headed down the hall.

Then pulling the room key from her jacket pocket she prompted, "And?"

"We just have to pick up the tickets at the station on Monday."

This reply caught her up short, causing Sara to scrape the key along the outside of the lock.

"The tickets for what?" she asked.

"The train tickets to Rome."

"'Tickets' as in plural?"

"Yeah. I'm coming with you," Grissom said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I had to upgrade to a private couple's sleeping compartment, but I didn't think you'd mind."

Flustered and fumbling and unable for some reason to get the door open, Sara stammered, "You're coming all the way to Rome?"

"Allow me," he insisted, covering her hand with his. Upon giving the key a deft turn to the left instead of the right, the latch clicked free.

Which was when Sara recalled that most locks in France operated in reverse to how they did back in the States, something she should have remembered after all the grief Grissom constantly gave her for being unable to open the front door to their Quartier Latin apartment the first few days each time she was back in Paris again.

At the moment though all she could do was mechanically follow Grissom into their room. He slipped off his coat and when he indicated that she should do the same, handed her own for him to hang up in the wardrobe. She just stood there dumbly watching him do this, completely at a loss for what to say.

Perhaps she shouldn't have been so surprised, not after all this time nor everything that had happened, but she was.

So that when she eventually spoke, her rather resolute "Sit down," came out a bit more dictatorial than she'd meant it to. It certainly brooked no refusal.

Swiftly surmising - however incorrect - that his wife was either upset with him or about to tell him something he might not want to hear, Grissom sat. But his unexpected flash of fear gave way to puzzlement once he felt her hands settle on his shoulders and her thumbs began to ease their way up his neck.

"Relax, Gil," she urged, gentler this time. "I know you're sore. I can feel it, so there's no point in your denying it."

And he was. The muscles he didn't normally use in the course of his teaching duties at the Sorbonne ached from the exercise, although not unpleasantly so. But he wasn't about to tell Sara this. Not with the feel of her hands on him again.

Instead, he asked, still slightly confused, "Returning the favor, dear?"

But that hadn't been it at all and she said as much.

Truth was, she still didn't have the words to reply to Grissom's abrupt change of plans. Until she did, she hoped her actions could come close.

In response to the deliberate attention she was giving to working loose the tension all along his shoulder blades, Grissom let out a long appreciative sigh, to which Sara laughed, "What was it you were saying last night about _me_ getting old?"

"You were the one who was asleep before I got back," he countered.

"Jet lag."

Predictably Grissom's "Right," was thoroughly incredulous.

"Fine," she conceded. "But if I'm _growing_ old, what does that make you?"

While he didn't deign to dignify this with a response, actually Grissom didn't mind growing older in the slightest if it meant that he was going to be able to do it with Sara at his side. In fact, he was even looking forward to the prospect.

"So you aren't mad?" he hazarded to ask after a while.

"Just surprised," she replied. "You weary of the countryside already, 'cause I know you can't be tired of the bugs. You never do."

For Grissom's holidays, if you could ever really call them that, tended to be of the busman's variety. He frequented entomology conferences; raced cockroaches. They'd gone bug hunting on their honeymoon for heaven's sakes. So it certainly wasn't like Gil Grissom to forgo a veritable entomological gold mine. He was a bugman after all.

His subsequent "I'd rather have the extra time with you," was just as breathtakingly straightforward as the announcement of his intentions to go with her had been.

"It's a fifteen hour train ride from Rome back to Paris, you know," she reminded him.

"I've got time," he said, leaning back to give her one of his rare, private lopsided grins that whether he knew it or not, was always assured to win his wife over to whatever he was wishing or wanting.

Although he wasn't above teasing.

"Unless," he began, "your protests are your way of telling me you're tired of my company already."

"No," she smiled in return.

And Sara was struck with the sudden realization that plans were just that: plans, things to be made and broken and amended as circumstances warranted. That ultimately what mattered was the time they had with each other.

"Rome it is," she replied.

Her fingers began to steal their way down his chest before coming to rest on the buttons of his Oxford. Fumbling several of the topmost ones free, she said, "Although apart from the obvious, I really don't know anything about Rome."

Grissom didn't question her actions; he merely took the hint and began undoing the ones she couldn't reach.

"I thought you were the one who said, 'Google is a girl's best friend'? Anyway," he rejoined sensibly, "I do."

Nodding knowingly at this, Sara said, "Of course you do," and began to ease the fabric from his shoulders.

"Besides, 'Everyone soon or late comes round by Rome,'" he intoned, shrugging off the shirt entirely.

Readily recognizing his words as a specimen from her husband's virtually bottomless cache of quotations, Sara chuckled, "And who was it that said that?"

"Browning," he supplied. Although feeling her hands resettle on his now bare skin his qualification of "Robert, not Elizabeth," came out breathy more than anything.

He was lost in the heaven of having her hands on him again for a long while before he said, "You know, if you've got your heart set on more bug hunting, we can still do that, even in Rome."

"How?"

At the curious way she cocked her head to his "You'll see," Grissom added, "I guess you'll just have to trust me, dear."

"I suppose I deserved that."

"Maybe a little," he agreed and tilted his head back hoping for the kiss Sara was only too happy to supply, one that soon stopped everything: thought, breath, the motion of her hands.

"Shower," she suggested as they broke away. "It'll help."

Her hint however wasn't a matter of hygiene. For they'd each showered before coming down for dinner. Except with both of them ravenous and with a rapidly approaching dinner reservation (and one did not show up late for dinner in France), their washing up had done little more than knock off the sweat and rinse the smell of river water from their hair. But at the moment Sara was thinking more about how the hot water might help ease the last of her husband's stiffness.

"Only if you'll join me," he replied.

And there was that glint in his eyes, the one reserved for when they were alone like this together.

"Don't want to take the chance that I might disappear on you if I don't?" she asked. Then with a playful grin of her own she added, "Or is this just an excuse to get me naked?"

"More afraid you might be asleep by the time I got out," he rejoined. "Besides, since when have I needed an excuse?" he questioned in return.

Sara said nothing to this. Grissom felt her hands leave his shoulders and turned to watch her shuck her shoes and slip off her clothes on her way to the bathroom.

Pausing at the doorway, her eyes and face alight with something far different from mischief, she said, "Didn't anyone ever tell you never to keep a woman waiting, Gil?"

Someone had actually. It had proven to have been excellent advice then and certainly seemed sound now.

So he joined her.

_To be continued in_ Amour Interrupted


	7. Seven: Amour Interrupted

**Seven: Amour Interrupted**

"The art of love... is largely the art of persistence,"

Albert Ellis

Sara leaned in to start the shower and was testing the temperature of the feeble spray with the back of her hand when she felt in the warm press of his body, her husband come up behind her. Next, there was her hair swept back; the soft brush of a kiss along the nape of her neck. All of which was followed by the quiet rumble of the inevitable sigh Grissom loved so much to hear.

But knowing from experience that the hot water at this particular _hôtel_ didn't last long, Sara, however reluctantly insisted that they'd better take advantage of it while they could and steered her husband into the shower before joining him.

It was a tight fit; not really meant for two. But they didn't mind the closeness. At least it was an overhead shower; unlike the handheld one they fought with back in their Paris apartment. Except as this one strangely lacked a shower curtain they had to work to keep the water from getting all over the floor.

Sara was adamant even if it meant leaving her more out in the cold than not, that Grissom stand under the water. While the effect of which on particular parts of her anatomy did not go wholly unnoticed or unappreciated, Grissom promptly drew her closer and into the warmth.

She soaped up her hands, the better to be able to untangle the remaining knots from her husband's shoulders and back. His eyes closed; she could feel him begin to relax under her touch.

"Better?" she murmured, cupping the back of his neck in her palms.

He hummed his agreement.

Before long though, the attentions turned from the tenderly therapeutic to the far more sensual.

She was slowly sliding her palms along his chest in hopes of loosening the last of the tightness away when her thumbs inadvertently grazed his nipples. With a gasp and a shiver, Grissom's eyes flashed wide and he was instantly a great deal more alert and while he wasn't feeling sore any longer, he felt far from relaxed either.

There was a momentary flicker of mischief in her eyes when Sara registered the reaction, as if she were seriously contemplating repeating the act, intentionally this time. And she was tempted, sorely tempted. Instead, her hands continued their way down his chest and along his stomach, with her appreciative gaze following suit.

That latent threat in her eyes coupled with the feel of her fingers was enough for Grissom, he tugged her tight against him and kissed her full and long and hard on the mouth with all the want, hunger and desire of a man who's been waiting to make love with his wife for nearly a month. From the eager way she returned his affections, Sara plainly felt the same.

Suddenly, neither were much in the mood for a shower.

So after a few more fervid kisses that made them both a little weak in the knees, Sara reached back behind him to shut off the water. She handed her husband a towel, but instead of using it on himself, he set about toweling her dry. Between how the coarse fibers tickled and the way he gave her wet hair an extra tousle for good measure, Sara laughed.

As she returned the favor, Grissom asked, "Do we have to be up at the crack of dawn again tomorrow?"

"No."

"Good."

And they shared a smile at the knowledge that neither of them were interested in a hurried tussle tonight.

For there was far more to lovemaking than sex.

An understanding Grissom seemed keen on demonstrating at the moment, as he nuzzled her neck, one of his wife's favorite places to be kissed.

"Bed," she murmured nearly breathless into his ear.

And there were no detours nor further dawdling between the bathroom and the bed. Although as it was an unfamiliar room, there'd been a fair share of clumsy stumbling and attendant laughter along the way.

Of course after it having been no more than a cursory toweling off, neither of them were actually dry when they hit the mattress. Neither much minded nor noticed either as wrapped up as they were in each other.

For while Marlowe's passionate shepherd may have had more ignoble purposes in mind, the sentiments still rang true:

_Come live with me and be my Love,_

_And we will all the pleasures prove..._

The time for play past; tempting done, the flirt and tease of the day gave way to the gentle ardency and patient passion of unhurried lovemaking. To that slow savoring of eyes and hands and lips and skin that came from the need to be always touching, tasting, kissing and caressing. In the giving and receiving of pleasure in equal parts.

There was the catch of breath, then the low rumble of a long exhale as Sara's neatly cropped nails replaced the pads of her fingers along her husband's bare back.

Never could Grissom get enough of it - of her - especially with all the time they spent apart now.

Sara simply happened to him all over again.

Even after all their years together, their marriage, she still did, in that falling feeling, the overwhelming, overcoming rush he always seemed somehow to forget until she was back beside him like this again. It was, he'd always thought, a strange sort of amnesia. And strange too, for her to be so foreign and familiar all at once. And him to be alive like this. To touch and be touched in ways before her he'd never known to long for.

Though when she was here with him, beside him, so very warm and real and alive in his arms, the last thing Grissom wanted to do was think or observe, classify or reason. All he wanted was to be lost with her - in her - in the body he knew almost better than his own and yet seemed ever to be discovering.

And Sara, wanting nothing more than the feel of his weight against her, the reassuring presence of it as it always was in that press and caress of his body on hers, wanting to cradle him as close to her as she could, she wrapped her arms and legs about him.

Lips met. Breathlessness began.

Until they were both startled by a clumsy thud against their door, followed by the awkward scrape of a key in the lock, the urgent jiggle of the handle.

None of this proving to be of any avail to whoever was on the other side of the door, a spate of thunderous banging was soon accompanied by a very loud and colorful curse in an equally loud, brash, slightly drunken and distinctly all too familiar and yet completely unexpected American voice.

"Maybe he'll just go away," Sara suggested.

Pound. Pound.

"Come on, André. I can't get the key to work."

Grissom had his doubts.

Pound.

"I know you're in there, man. Just open the door..."

Pound. Pound. Pound.

Which was next followed by the pathetic, nearly desperate, ear-piercing whine of "Come on, André. I've got to go -"

"Or not," Sara reluctantly conceded.

If anything the voice grew even more insistent. "This really isn't funny, man..."

With a beleaguered sigh, Grissom threw on his boxers before tugging an undershirt impatiently over his head. Decidedly disgruntled, he unfastened the lock, drew open the door.

"About ti-"

The sight of Grissom in the doorway cut the interloper off mid-word.

"You're not André," he said with all the inherent stupidity of someone stating the obvious. "This is 208," he insisted, despite the confused, glazed-over way he was peering up at Grissom.

Sadly, it was a look Grissom was all too _au fait_ with. And really wasn't in the mood for at the moment. That and as the unexpected -– and unwelcome –- visitor did look urgent, it would just be for the best for all of them if Grissom sent him on his way.

"Try the next building over," he suggested.

How the kid, for Grissom could come up with no other way to describe someone who didn't look like he was old enough yet to vote, let alone drink back in the U.S., could have confused the hotel's two buildings, each having been built nearly a century apart, he had no idea. Of course when it came to drunken American teenage idiocy perhaps it was just better not to know.

Not the least bit interested in pursuing the subject, however, he closed the door before the boy could get in another word.

Grissom was still shaking his head as he wandered towards the large French doors that opened upon their second floor balcony. Sara thought for a moment that after the inanity of the encounter, perhaps her husband wanted a bit of fresh air to clear his head. Instead, he simply brushed the thick curtains aside to peer out into the night.

There wasn't much to see, not then at least. Le Roc, as the huge limestone cliff that towered nearly 200 meters above Castellane was affectionately known, blotted out much of the sky.

Still, he'd wanted to make sure. Just in case.

Slipping her arms around him to hug him from behind, Sara said, "Thought we were back in Vegas there for second?"

Grissom gave her a wordless nod as he covered her hands with his own.

With a sad laugh, she placed a reassuring kiss into his shoulder and sighed, "Me, too. Small world, huh?"

"A bit too small."

Perhaps they should have expected that Castellane being as it was a base for the numerous sorts of extreme outdoor adventures that the young particularly liked to favor, that same youth would be just as prone to its usual foibles and follies as well.

So much for peace and quiet in any event.

Although when he turned to her, Grissom seemed far more bewilderedly bemused by the whole thing rather than actually nettled.

Sara took his face in her hands and kissed him anyway.

When they broke apart, she told him to "Come on," and then with an almost impish tug on his boxers, her intent in which there could be no misunderstanding, she whispered, "Come back to bed, Gil."

Both the boxers and his shirt were long gone before they got there and Grissom soon found himself playfully - and very pleasantly - pinned to the sheets _sans vêtements _again.

Gently at first, she kissed him, her still damp hair falling over their faces. But soon this gave way to hungrier open-mouth ones once more.

And Grissom watched in rapt appreciation the pleasure play over her face as with all his usual deliberation, his hands brushed her curls away, lingered with them for a long moment along her neck and shoulders before slowly sliding down and then back up the smooth slope of her bare back.

His name came out like the breath of a sigh.

Then in rapid succession came a knock, a fresh drunken bellow of "André!" followed by the resounding slump of a body on the floor and a very disagreeable sensation of _déjà vu_ on both Grissom and Sara's parts.

"This André must be one popular guy," she sighed wearily.

Grissom only groaned.

"Guess it's my turn," said Sara as she grudgingly clambered off him and out of bed.

Wanting to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, she didn't bother to get dressed, choosing instead to give the blanket from the end of the bed an impatient tug around herself on the way to the door.

When she threw it open, a blonde, tousled-hair boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen and was obviously smashed off his ass - he certainly smelled it - fell back with a drunken moan of "Whoa..." before conking his head on the floor.

His eyes went even wider as he blinked bleary-eyed up at the sight of Sara standing there clad only in a blanket. Swiftly realizing that said blanket didn't cover much from that angle, Sara took a hurried step back.

"Wow... uh... you're... you're not André… I know André…" he stuttered tipsily, "And you aren't him… You… I mean you…. You're… you're… "

Then with the absolute honesty of the inebriated he stammered, "You're hot-"

"Looking for André?" Sara asked, finding it nearly impossible not to smile or roll her eyes at this.

He nodded. "Said to meet him… to go out for drinks. Room... uh… Two...oh... two-oh…. Two-oh-eight... See," he said, motioning to the number plate on the door with an awkward wave of the hand, "Two-oh-eight," as if that settled everything.

"But I could... uh..." he said, propping himself up on his elbows and attempting, albeit unsuccessfully, to come across as suave, "I could just stay here with you..."

This being the second unwanted drunken interruption in less than ten minutes and with her feeling less than magnanimous because of that fact at the moment, Sara wasn't quite able to resist the temptation to yank the kid's chain - just a little.

"Hmm," she began as if she were actually considering the option, "that's quite an offer."

Her nearly beguiling tone was so convincing that it stopped Grissom in his tracks as he was getting dressed yet again.

"But..." she finished, not quite able to pull off sounding reluctant, "as tempting as that sounds, I'm not sure my husband..."

"Husband?" the kid gulped.

"Husband," echoed Grissom, who as if on cue, appeared over Sara's shoulder with a hand extended so as to help the now hapless boy to his feet.

From the way the teen blanched, shell-shocked and nearly white as a sheet, Sara could just imagine the look on her husband's face. Gil Grissom might practice pacifism and absolutely abhorred violence, but that didn't keep him from appearing intimidating when he needed or wanted to.

"Come on," Grissom urged, not so gently scooping the kid up by the armpits and nudging him back into the hall. "And if you're still looking for André, you might want to try the other building."

Sara called, "Good night," as she went to close the door.

But her husband put out a hand. "Wait," he said. "There aren't any more of you are there?"

The kid only gave him an unhelpfully dumbfounded expression in reply.

Grissom simply shook his head and shut the door.

Sara caught the hint of a smile replacing the last vestiges of one of her husband's infamous dour stares - the sort she was happy to have had seldom levied at her over the years.

And suddenly the two of them were overcome by a case of the guffaws. They couldn't help it. It had just been one of those days.

Earlier that afternoon, they had stumbled sopping wet up onto the riverbank to take a break from canoeing and to have a chance perhaps to dry after their little tussle on the water, when not long after their arrival, they were thoroughly chastened for all the noise they were apparently making by a viciously vituperating squirrel. And now, they'd been interrupted _in medias res_ not once, but twice by the results of ill-advised youthful alcoholic indiscretion. It was... Absurd. Absolutely absurd.

Grissom was still chuckling when he turned to his wife and said, "Wasn't he just a little young for you, dear?"

Sara did indeed roll her eyes at this.

"That wasn't nice, you know," her husband added not entirely reprovingly. "Teasing the poor kid like that.

"Although completely understandable," he murmured, something other than amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

"What is?" she asked with a bewildered chuckle.

"You."

When she continued to look puzzled, he added matter-of-factly, "I guess I really can't blame the kid for trying."

For she was beautiful like that: eyes bright, cheeks flushed, lips slightly redder and swollen from kissing, her shoulder-length hair loose, wild and a little wanton about her face.

Irresistible. Irrepressibly so.

Sara colored for she could practically feel his eyes caressing her.

"Flattery will get you everywhere you know," she murmured.

Grissom's fingers curled over her hand, the one that held the fabric closed. He was just about to lean in to kiss her when he was struck by a sudden thought.

"Is your phone still on?" he asked.

"What?" came her incredulous reply.

"Is your phone still on?" he repeated patiently.

"Yeah, probably. Why?"

"Turn it off," Grissom insisted with a vehemence that baffled his wife.

"Gil, it's late," Sara protested. "Grave's been over for hours."

Not that that meant anything. And they both knew it. And considering their luck that night...

"I see your point," she conceded, and not in the mood for any further disruptions either, went over to the table and made doubly sure she completely shut down her phone.

"And," Grissom began, narrowing the last of the distance between them once she was done, "I get to pick the accommodations in Rome."

Sara's sigh of "It's not really the hotel's fault..." was cut off by his kiss.

Within not even a heartbeat, all previous interruptions - and the blanket that just happened to fall to the floor - were forgotten.


	8. Eight: A Case of the Road Trip Blues

**Eight: A Case of the Road Trip Blues**

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them,"

Mark Twain

It all began ordinarily enough.

Well, as ordinary as any day that began with the two of them waking up in bed together.

It felt good to think of it like that: ordinary.

Perhaps they should have known better. But it was hard to imagine, let alone worry about, anything unpleasant while they were curled up close like a couple of quotation marks beneath the bed covers.

Not too much after eight, Grissom gently nuzzled his wife awake with an imploring, "Sara -"

Prompting a still somnolent, "Hmm," from her.

"I think we've overslept," he said, although in truth more feigning concern than feeling it.

When she made no response to this he persisted, "Honey, I think we've overslept."

Sara only nestled deeper into the blankets as she murmured, "You said that already."

He nudged her again, a little more insistent this time.

She took the hint. "Fine, you win. I'm up," she reluctantly conceded and rolled over to face him. "What time is it?"

"I dunno," Grissom replied. "But the sun's out. So I figured we had to be running late."

"You're funny. Real funny, Gilbert."

"You mean we really don't have to be somewhere at the crack of dawn today?" he openly grinned.

Sara rewarded his cheek with a swat of her pillow.

* * *

Unsurprising, they had a rather late start that morning.

They lingered for a while longer in bed, it being as of late too rare a pleasure to squander or surrender so soon. There hadn't been a heck of a lot of hot water left when it came time to freshen up, but Sara was used to it after all the showers she'd been having lately back at the lab. Breakfast was pleasantly simple for all its indulgence: large bowls of _café crème_ and freshly baked bread from the local _boulangerie_ generously slathered in last year's _miel de lavande_.

Even more eye opening than the strong French coffee was the brisk half-hour hike they took that morning up to the top of Le Roc. But the view from the terrace of Notre Dame du Roc Chapel was well worth it. While they couldn't quite glimpse the gorges Sara had informed Grissom they'd come to see, the picturesque village of Castellane and the idyllic, untamed countryside beyond splayed spectacularly about their feet, all flushed in that Provençal glow that artists like Cézanne and Van Gogh had come and stayed for. The sun-blessed south was certainly verdant for it and unlike the short and fleeting springs back in Vegas, here the season seemed quite content to dally. It gave them both pause.

And in that moment it was easy to be caught up in it, in the unbridled optimism of a day but begun, in the prospect of adventures to come, travels made, roads taken.

Not that Grissom was adverse to any further hands-on explorations, but by the time they'd finally descended onto the stone streets of Castellane, he'd been more happy than not to be informed that Sara had no intentions for them to actually hike any of the gorge.

Instead, she'd decided they should partake of it through that greatest of American holiday pastimes: the road trip. A nice leisurely drive where they'd be able to take in the sights, the fresh air and the wilderness in ways they'd so infrequently been able to do back in Vegas (ventures outside the city to secure crime scenes and examine dead bodies notwithstanding). Besides, they'd get to take in more of the view from the road anyway.

Well, they would once the mist of the morning finally cleared. And if they survived the trip.

On this particular Sunday, there seemed to be a surfeit of Sunday drivers of a very different sort. Ones who were indifferent to_ la belle vue_ - or speed limits or cautions. They took the blind curves and the hairpin bends like homicidal maniacs, or in this case perhaps like the starving in search of their Sunday dinner, that most august of _les institutions françaises_.

As swarms of motorcycles buzzed by them, it was hard to imagine that this part of France hadn't really been discovered until the 20th Century. Up until then, the deepest ravines of _la gorges du Verdon_ were believed to be impenetrable, and the only ones lucky enough to take in the view of what would later be known as _le Grand Canyon de Verdon _were the occasional woodcarver in search of boxwood stumps they could craft into _boules_. It was a shame really, for while not nearly as vast or encompassing a chasm as the one the Colorado River continues to carve across the millennia, the Verdon Gorge was impressive in its own right.

Just outside the village of Rougon, they pulled off the road and just stood there gaping in wordless wonder. Sara was so awestruck that she almost forgot about the camera in her hands. Eventually, she recovered enough to get in a couple of snaps as there was no way any of them back at the lab would believe any of this if she told them; if she even possessed the words to even begin to tell them in the first place. Maybe her husband did and could; she certainly didn't. Except even Grissom was struck speechless.

It was as if they stood at the very top of the world. As far as the eye could see, a vast ocean of clouds pooled just beneath their feet; their white wispy seas punctuated by occasional oases of twisted junipers which added their green to sheer shields of weathered blue-grey, orange and yellowed stone.

From among all that immense stillness, two distant inklings resolved themselves upon further squinting eye-shaded inspection into a pair of snowy bald heads and broad brown wings.

Sara turned to Grissom and said, unease beginning to creep into her voice, "Those aren't what I think they are?"

"Vultures?" he supplied. "Looks like it."

"You don't think..."

"Raptors circle for all sorts of reasons," Grissom countered sensibly. "They're probably just enjoying the thermals."

Although he didn't seem any more keen to think on the alternative than Sara was. Not that it was likely anything ominous. At worst they were probably after the remains of a wild boar or perhaps a rabbit.

But as neither of them were the least bit interested in a replay of the December before, when while on what should have been a harmless weekend tourist jaunt in Paris, the two of them had somehow managed to have the misfortune of stumbling upon a dead body in that strange, surreal sort of way that the protagonists of multitudes of mystery novels always seemed wont to do, when Sara suggested, "Maybe we should..." Grissom readily agreed.

If either of them had been of the superstitious sort, they might have regarded the vultures as rather ominous portends, but they weren't and didn't. Of course that didn't keep everything from ostensibly going down hill after that.

Starting just after _le déjeuner_. Past experience had long ago taught them that large meals tended to act more as a deterrent than an enhancement to sightseeing, particularly as all one really wanted to do afterwards was curl up in a comfortable chair and pretend to read until you dozed off. So Grissom and Sara decided to forgo the grand ritual of the languid Sunday luncheon in favor of café fare taken and consumed_ à l'américaine_ - quick and on the go. Maybe they should have known better, that you just can't rush French food, not even French fast food.

Although Provençal cooking was not as heavy on the butter and animal products as _la cuisine parisienne_, it had a richness all its own, one that for some reason didn't seem to sit well with Grissom, at least not that particular afternoon. Not that it was an uncommon complaint in France for tourists and locals alike: _les problèmes digestifs__._ As there actually was such a thing as _too much of a good thing_, even gastronomic gourmands as they were, _les Français_ had to retreat to more abstemious grounds from time to time or go off to take the waters. Once free from the unpleasant aftereffects of dyspepsia, however, they soon heartily returned to the pleasures and perils of the table.

Not that the car ride helped much. With the spectacular vistas it afforded, taking the highly scenic_ route des Crêtes_ had sounded like a really good idea while they'd been discussing it with the owner of the café, but now that they were winding their way along the narrow one-way road that literally hugged the very edge of the gorge rim, sans guard rails and populated as it was with plenty of twisting, turning switchbacks and sheer 800 meter drops, neither Grissom nor Sara were so sure.

And perhaps it wasn't such a good thing after all that the cloud cover had finally cleared, burned off by the growing heat of the day, as the emerging panorama was a dizzying prospect on a good day. Having started out a little green to begin with, for Grissom it was pure torture.

It wasn't like he was typically prone to vertigo, carsickness, sickness of any sort. Apart from the occasional nausea brought on by his thankfully less and less frequent as of late migraines, he was mostly immune to illness or distress. But the unfamiliar food, the closeness of the car, the vertigo, and serpentine road did more to undo Gil Grissom than a two-month old de-comp in a duffle bag ever had and his typically cast iron stomach failed him.

"Stop the car," he gasped after a moment.

Sara didn't even bother to ask why, for in the glimpse she'd had of his face she saw and understood.

Considering how smashed that kid at their door had been the night before, Sara hadn't envied him the hangover he'd likely had that morning, but she couldn't imagine him looking any worse than her husband did now.

Thankfully, she lucked out and found a place to pull over that didn't include a half-mile drop off. In an instant, Grissom was out of the car and down on his knees in the dirt.

She cringed at the sudden sound of retching, but knowing from previous experience that her husband preferred to be sick in private, she instead set about fumbling in her bag for the tin of mints or candied ginger she usually brought along for long journeys. Her search came up empty. Between all the changes in plans and added overtime just before she'd left, she'd neglected to replenish her stock.

At least there was still plenty of water left over from lunch. It wasn't much, and a little warm, but right now it would have to do. She retrieved the bottle and the handkerchief she knew Grissom always kept in his inside jacket pocket before going to check on him.

Just in case, she slid her hand under his elbow as he a more than a little unsteadily returned to his feet. As getting right back in the car would likely just make it all worse, she steered him to a couple of boulders out of the sun and away from the noxious fumes and noise of the road. As he sat, she pressed the bottle of water in his hand, but not before liberally dousing the handkerchief so she could drape it over the back of his neck. He accepted both gestures gratefully as he started to slowly sip.

They both waited for some semblance of equilibrium to return. That it seemed to take longer than usual didn't escape Sara's notice.

"You okay?" she asked after a while.

He could hear the concern in her voice, feel it in the tender hand she rested on his shoulder, so he nodded and attempted to smile her worry away.

Although she'd been trying hard not to fuss, she couldn't keep herself from smoothing his hair as she asked, "Headache?"

"No, dear," he replied taking up her other hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Just Victor Hugo being right."

When she gave him an understandably bemused look at this he said, "'_L'indigestion a été chargée par Dieu de faire la morale à l'estomac._ Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach.'"

"I see," she said with a nod and a slight smile of her own before adding, "At least you sound like you're feeling a little better."

"I am, thanks."

They had a few more minutes in the stillness and open air before he indicated he was ready to go. They were on their way back to the car when an unfamiliar smell stopped Sara short, a sweet almost fruity pleasant sort of scent.

"What is it?" Grissom asked.

"You don't smell that?"

She watched him inhale and recognition pass over his features.

"Of course you know what it is," Sara said with a sigh and a knowing shake of the head.

"So do you," he replied tugging her towards a clump of bushes on the other side of the road. He lifted a stalk heavily laden with an effusion of pea-shaped florets aside.

"Acacia," she supplied. With the thorns revealed it was obvious.

"False acacia actually, but yeah."

"At least I don't have to worry about you wanting to climb this one," Sara laughed. Although Grissom's tumble out of a far larger Costa Rican species during his first week in the rainforest had been anything but amusing at the time.

"No ants anyway," came his matter of fact reply. "Just bees."

And bees there were, several of them busily buzzing about the blossoms.

Sara took a tentative step back. It didn't matter how much time she'd spent bug hunting with Grissom, she still wasn't all that keen on bees. And as pleasant as their last encounter had proven on the whole, she wasn't about to put herself in the position to be stung again. Her husband however wasn't the least bit shy. He leaned further in, eyes and nose and face up close, too close in her opinion, to have a better look.

Seeming to sense his wife's reluctance, Grissom said, "It's okay to look. They won't bite."

"Just sting, yeah, I remember."

He gave her a look that plainly indicated she should come closer. Which reluctant, she did. Far more willingly, she agreed when her husband said, "It wasn't that bad." For it hadn't been. Not really.

In truth, that day had been a bright moment in the darkness of the weeks and months after Natalie, after Sara moved to Swing, after how little time she and Grissom had with each other because of that then.

"It was memorable to say the least," she conceded.

They shared a smile at the memory.

"And original. Don't get me wrong, Gil, but whatever possessed you..."

"To ask?" he finished.

Sara nodded. Although_ ask_ wasn't exactly the right word for it, as his quietly murmured, "You know, maybe we should get married," had sounded far more like a suggestion than an actual query. It wasn't until she'd made no reply for a while that he, in an uncharacteristically uneasy voice, had come closer to asking a real question when he'd stammered, "So, uh... what do you think, you know, about..."

"I mean it wasn't like we'd ever talked about it," she said. "Not really. I didn't even know you were thinking about it."

"I don't know."

Sara wasn't sure if it was the honesty or the answer that surprised her most, causing her to echo, "You don't know?"

Grissom shrugged. "It just felt like the right moment," he said, grinning in a way that she knew he only ever did with her. Not that sort of smirk that was desirous and wanting, although he did upon occasion wear that one too, but this was more of an endearing smile born from genuine happiness and the ease they'd developed with each other over the years. "So I took a chance."

Sara beamed in return. "I'm glad you did."

"Me, too."

He was about to lean in to kiss her, but in light of his recent intestinal distress quickly reconsidered. Sara had a hard time containing her amusement at his well-intentioned reticence.

"Why don't you explain what's going on," she said motioning to the flowers where several bees were competing for the luxuriant flower heads. "I'm no expert, but they don't look like they're covered in pollen."

With his usual customary ease, Grissom segued into lecture mode. "That's because with acacias they don't collect pollen, just the nectar," he supplied. He gestured to one of the nearest bees, "See the proboscis on the front - looks like a straw. They suck the nectar up into their honey stomachs to take back to the hive where they all get together to regurgitate and then re-consume the contents until..."

It was Sara's turn to look a little green. "I think I get the picture."

* * *

On the way back to the car, they paused for a few moments to take in _la vue_, which thankfully wasn't nearly quite so disorienting when one was standing still.

Far beneath them, the river rushed and wended and in the tighter spaces bubbled and broke into white caps and rapids. Its peculiar milky turquoise-green opaqueness, from which _la rivière du Verdon_ took its name, was the result of the intermixture of the limestone that had slowly dissolved over the eons from the canyon walls and the river's particular microscopic flora. Back when the dinosaurs reigned, the whole region had been a vast shoal sea and much of the limestone and chalk beds that remained were once great coral reefs now long extinct.

But before long Sara could see that despite all of Grissom's earlier insect enthusiasms, fatigue was starting to settle back in again and she suggested they resume their journey.

At least it currently being a Sunday afternoon had one markedly perceptible advantage: the post-lunch drivers seemed to prefer more sedate returns home to their earlier near homicidal ventures out.

Not that Grissom much noticed. Though he hadn't been about to admit it to Sara, he still felt spent after having been sick and reckoned that it wouldn't hurt to close his eyes just for a few minutes. Before long, he'd begun to doze.

Something Sara hadn't quite realized. Naturally, she'd noticed his silence and stillness, but he was often like that on car rides, lost in his own thoughts or the scenery. It certainly hadn't surprised her he'd been that way after being sick. In any case, she'd been far too busy taking the hairpin curves and tight bends in second gear. Then when she'd come up to the unmarked tee in the road there had been an impatiently honking driver behind her so that when she'd asked her husband whether they should go right or left, she didn't quite register how absent his mumbled reply of "Left," was.

And while it was fairly easy to lose track of distances on the winding roads, when a further half hour didn't find them in the charming hamlet of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, the famous faïence capital of France, Sara started to get concerned. She honestly couldn't recall from her mental maps if the route from La Palud put them out north or south of the village. The one thing she certainly did remember was there hadn't been any lake on the way and there was no mistaking the immense blue body of water on the right hand side of the road for anything but_ un lac_.

Knowing better than to consult her phone while driving, she pulled into a belvedere and hastily put the car into park. The sudden stop jostled Grissom awake. Unfortunately he was still blinking off the drowsiness so that Sara ended up halfway through turning out the contents of her tote before realizing she'd given him her phone that morning to help out with the navigating. This did nothing to relieve her frustration.

Nor did his curious query of "Where are we?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," she rejoined a little testily. When he persevered in looking puzzled at this she prompted, "Phone, Gil."

Although not quite alert to what precisely was going on, he recognized the tone in his wife's voice and proceeded to hand it over without question. Sara quickly swiped through the various screens until she found the GPS.

"That's what I thought," she said.

"What?"

"You said to go left."

Realizing how stupid, meaningless and ultimately unhelpful a second _What?_ would have sounded, he asked, "When?" instead.

And all in one barely breathless burst she replied, "Back at the intersection. I asked you which way to go. You said left. I went left."

"Slow down, Sara. The last thing I remember before I fell asleep-"

She cut in with an impatient, "I thought you were supposed to be navigating not napping."

"May I?" he asked calmly, although he didn't wait for her response before taking up the phone to check the electronic map for himself. "So where were we supposed to be going?"

"Moustiers-Sainte-Marie," she supplied. "Which is there. We're here." She indicated the GPS marker, which happened to be significantly further south than where they should have been.

"Well, at least we aren't lost," Grissom said reasonably.

Sara shot him an incredulous glare.

"Honey, we know where we are, we just aren't where we want to be."

"Funny," she said, though she didn't sound the least bit amused.

"Look, we've got two choices," he began. "We can turn around and go back the way we came or we can go forward and follow this road around the lake. See it meets up with D952, which will take us right into Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. Do we have to be there at a set time?"

"Just need to check in."

"So why not?" he asked.

"You mean why not take the long way?"

"Why not wander a little?"

"You feeling much better then?" she queried in reply.

"Wandering is good for you."

"Oh really?"

"'Not all those who wander are lost.'"

"Thoreau?"

"Tolkien."

At this Sara had to laugh. "You did read _The Lord of the Rings_?"

"Yeah."

"None of that was what I would call a pleasant trip, Gil."

"Where's your sense of adventure, Sara?"

While it pained her to admit it and she would never own it, her husband did have a point. It wasn't much past four. With the spring days lengthening the nearer and nearer they got to summer, they still had hours yet before dark. A little detour couldn't hurt. And the lake was beautiful. So why not?

It wasn't long before Sara regretted caving in to her husband's suggestion.

They'd passed through the towns of Les Salles sur Verdon and Bauduen without any mishaps and had finally turned northward once more as they continued their circumnavigation of what the map told them was _le Lac de Sainte-Croix_, when there was an abrupt thud, followed in quick succession by a rhythmic thump, thump, thump, thump and the sudden lurch of the car to the right. All tell tale signs of one thing: a flat.

That knowing didn't keep Sara from slamming the driver's side door in irritation as she got out. Nor did her humor improve at the sight of the long deep gash in the rubber that there was no way they could just patch even if they had means of re-inflating the tire. So Sara set about preparing to change it.

"At least it's a full-sized spare," she sighed once the two of them had unearthed it, the jack and the tire iron out from under their bags. "As I have no idea where you'd even go to get one replaced."

"Garage probably."

"You have any Provençal mechanics in your list of contact that I don't know about, Gil?"

As her voice was starting to get that irritable growl to it once more and knowing as he did that Sara was perfectly capable of changing a tire without his assistance, supervision or input, Grissom stepped out of the way to give her plenty of room to work.

Except the VW Golf they'd rented had barely a couple hundred kilometers on it when they'd picked it up in Nice. Which meant apart from still having that new car smell, it being new, was equipped with the cheapest jacks that barely any money spent could buy and with factory tightened bolts that wouldn't budge. This meant that in the ten minutes it would normally take Sara to swap tires all she had succeeded in doing was bending the jack and getting increasingly more irritated.

Accurately sensing that things weren't going well, Grissom popped open the glove compartment to retrieve their rental contract, hoping it would have the contact information for roadside assistance service. It did. But when he went to dial he discovered he had no signal on his phone. He checked Sara's, too. No joy.

It had to be Murphy's Law, otherwise how else could they have ended up getting a flat on the only stretch of road in the country that didn't have cell reception.

At this point nothing surprised Sara. Although when Grissom suggested his hiking a little further up the road, she was a little leery. With him having been sick not that many hours before, the looping roads and sometimes even loopier drivers, she wasn't so sure that was a good idea.

When she said as much to him, he replied, "I'll be fine," and soon disappeared from view.

Sara wiped the sweat from her forehead, stripped down to the tank top she wore under her shirt and not about to be bested by a flat tire of all things, set back to task.

When Grissom returned sometime later, he found her sweating and still struggling and now swearing in a spew of Spanish that would have made Ana, their old site director back in Costa Rica, blush.

Ultimately, Sara was more angry with herself than anything. Back in one of the lab's garages she could have had the car half dismantled by now. If it hadn't been their only means of transportation, she was almost tempted to take the whole damn thing apart simply out of spite.

Of course that wouldn't exactly help. And she knew it. So she rose, cursed more loudly, kicked at a large rock on the side of the road in aggravation and only ended up doing more damage to her toes than the stone.

Although the act gave Grissom an idea.

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," he began.

Sara shrugged and let out a long breath. "As neither of us has a pneumatic drill handy, I'm up for suggestions."

"Got to go old school."

She gestured to the iron bar and socket. "Gil, this is old school."

"Really old school," he replied, selecting a fairly sizable hunk of limestone from the side of the road. "As in 2.5 million years ago old."

"And do what with it?" she said as he held the rock out to her.

He proceeded to hammer it upon the unmovable end of the tire iron in demonstration. And it and the stuck lug nuts actually began to budge. Sara gaped at him.

"Sometimes brute force is actually necessary."

Sara readily took up the rock, soon finding that the barbaric banging had the added benefit of helping release some of her frustration.

Once the nuts were finally loose, it was a simple task to swap tires and tighten them back on again.

Breathless more from the irritation rather than the actual exertion, Sara sank against the car in relief. Grissom handed her the water bottle he'd been nursing earlier with apologies that they had nothing else. Right now, Sara didn't care. The tepid water felt like heaven in her mouth.

"At least we didn't run out of gas," Grissom said as they got back into the car.

While it had been an attempt at levity more than anything, Sara decided to check the fuel gauge just in case. Accustomed as she was to her Prius' almost endless gas mileage, she hadn't thought to see how they were doing on fuel. The needle hovered just above the red zone before empty.

Sensing her concern, Grissom leaned in to have a look for himself.

"We've got plenty of gas to get us where we're going, dear," he reassured her. When she looked doubtful at this, he said, "Even once the low fuel light goes on you've got a good gallon of gas left in the tank. Golf's get what, about 30 miles per gallon," he paused to do the conversion in his head. "That's about 50 kilometers."

"Closer to 48," Sara corrected.

Grissom ignored this. "Even from Bauduen it was less than 40 kilometers to Moustiers. We're fine."

She sighed. "I never knew you liked to live so dangerously."

"Stop worrying," he insisted.

"That's easy for you to say. But as you're still the one navigating -"

"I thought you fired me."

"You're on probation."

Grissom seemed content with that. "Of course we can't get anywhere unless you start the car."

She shot him a dirty look, but turned the key anyway. Secretly, they each breathed a sigh of relief when the engine turned over and they were back on the road once again.

By now the gilt had worn off the day and fatigue already settled in its place. Tired from their misadventures, from traveling, from all the overtime she'd been putting in lately at work, from life in general, Sara let out a long, hard sigh, thinking as she did so about how unexpected chaos so frequently usurped wonder and was wondering why it was like that, easier to be overcome with the difficulties than the joy, when there came a cautionary "Sara," from beside her.

Sara started, unsure what the warning was for. It wasn't until her husband added a "Don't," to his second more insistent "Sara," that she realized she'd been absently attacking the bug bites on her right arm as she drove.

The welts, which had seemingly sprung up from nowhere, hadn't really begun to bother her until she'd started to sweat. That was when they'd really started to itch.

It had been like that when she'd had that cast from when she'd fractured her arm in two places trying to extricate herself from the car Natalie had left her under in the desert. The cast always itched. But when she got hot and sweaty, which as it had been summer then was pretty much a guarantee anytime she ventured outside even for a moment, the itching was murder. The inconvenience, the bulk, or even the immobility from having to wear it for months on end didn't drive her half as nuts as her inability to be able to scratch that itch.

But back in the here and now, she could, at least the bites she could readily reach. So she scratched and Grissom chided.

"You know that only makes it worse," he warned.

"It's already worse."

While Sara hadn't remembered there being a lot of mosquitoes when they'd been out on the river the day before, now that she thought back on it, there had to have been to support such a bevy of dragonflies.

Neither of them had worn any bug repellent. It would have defeated the purpose and they'd been nearly completely covered for most of the day, apart from the hour or so when they had taken that break on the bank. They'd both unzipped the lower parts of their convertible khakis and draped them next to their over shirts on a branch to dry while they'd lain in the sun. And dozed. Which had probably been when she'd gotten bitten. Not that the when or where or how really mattered at the moment. Right now, it just itched like hell.

Although Grissom didn't seem to be having any issues. In fact, he looked as if he hadn't been bitten at all.

"And how is it that you managed not to get bit once?" she demanded irritably.

"It's just body chemistry. You know that. Certain species of mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than others. Just like some people react more strongly to the venom of certain mosquitoes than others."

"I'd rather pass on the whole thing, thank you very much," she said. "You develop an immunity over the years or have you always just been blessed with it then?"

"Depends on the mosquito," he replied and it did. He'd been eaten up like crazy when he lived in Minnesota. Had a couple of bad bouts with them when he'd been doing post-grad work in Brazil. Thankfully, he and Sara hadn't been in Costa Rica during the mosquito season, so there hadn't been all that many mosquitoes for them to worry about while they were there

"Well, they all seem to like me," she said sulkily. "And don't give me any of that it's one of those _mind over matter_ things bull shit."

Normally when Sara was curt and cross like this, Grissom tended to leave her to her own devices for a while. It was just better to give her the time and space to cool down a little. But there wasn't all that much space within the relatively confined quarters of the Golf and he didn't relish riding for another half hour in aggrieved silence.

"Stop the car," he said in an authoritative tone she hadn't heard from him in quite a long while. While it didn't improve her temper any, she did what he asked without question or word, though she did bang the door again when she got out.

Grissom ignored this. Instead, he set about retrieving his toiletry bag from the back.

His tone was softer, gentler when he next spoke her name, as was his touch when he went to rest his hand on her shoulder. Neither mattered as she hissed in pain and recoiled from the contact. Though she did allow him to ease the shirt from her shoulders to reveal the blistering sunburn beneath.

Ever since her time in the desert, she burned easier and knew it, so she usually made sure to liberally slather on the sunscreen whenever she was out. And she had this morning before they'd left the hotel. Except, as she hadn't foreseen any reason for her to undress down to her tank top, she hadn't bothered to put any on her shoulders or upper arms. And she'd been so preoccupied with attempting to fix the flat that the fact she'd been exposed for nearly an hour hadn't even occurred to her.

"This doesn't look good," Grissom murmured in concern as he examined her shoulders, careful not to touch. "But there isn't much I can do until we get into town. But for the mosquito bites this should help."

When he'd pulled out the tube of the minty French_ dentifrice_ he tended to favor, Sara stammered, "Toothpaste?"

"Don't knock it until you've tried it," he replied and began to rub it into the welts along her arm. "Calves too?" She nodded and tugged up her pants legs.

By the time he asked if he'd missed any, she'd soften enough to repay his patient ministrations with a genuine smile.

Sara had no idea how he did it. She'd been hot despite the spring weather. Frustrated that none of her plans seemed to come to any good. First concerned about her husband when he'd been ill, then irritated at him when the day continued to deteriorate, even if he hadn't actually done anything wrong. And yet Grissom had barely batted an eye.

"After all of this, how can you be so calm?" she blurted out. "I mean the drive, the drivers, the road, getting lost."

"Technically we were never lost."

She ignored this. "The flat. I couldn't. And then with the bug bites and sunburn and…." Her voice trailed off.

Grissom prompted, "And?"

"And I have to..." she began but didn't finish.

"Have to what?" he asked.

"Pee," she finally admitted. "And if you haven't noticed there hasn't been a tree or decent bush for miles."

And she was really starting to understand that first guy's urgency, when he'd been desperately pounding on their hotel room door the night before.

Grissom proceeded to open both doors on the passenger side the better to create a makeshift stall.

Sara stammered, "You're joking, right?"

"You have a better suggestion apart from holding it for the next ten kilometers?"

When he put it that way.

"You know this will all be funny tomorrow," Grissom said as she was zipping her pants back up.

"If we survive until tomorrow," she countered.

"What else could possibly go wrong?"

Sara groaned. "Thanks, Gil. Just taunt the universe."

He smiled though didn't dignify this with a response.

"Why don't you take a break? Let me drive for a while," he suggested.

"Concerned?"

"Road rage kills you know."

"It wasn't that bad," Sara insisted.

"No," he easily agreed. "But why shouldn't you get a chance to enjoy the scenery? And I would like to get wherever we're going in one piece."

Recognizing his words for the tease they were, she only pursed her lips and silently shook her head.

"You okay?" he hazarded to ask.

"Yeah."

And she was. She just needed another minute or two to collect her breath and bearings.

When he asked, "We okay?" Sara only hugged him, perhaps a little too hard in reply. But he didn't seem to mind it, or the kiss she brushed along his cheek.

"_C'est la vie_," he said as he helped her into the car. "_Such is life_."

"Yeah, I know what it means," she answered not sure why he was telling her this.

"That's the answer to your question. Why I can be so calm.

"Besides," he added utterly nonchalant, though his sentiment was anything but, "Sara, I'd rather be lost, stranded or stuck in the middle of nowhere with you than anywhere else."

Then held out his hand saying, "Keys, dear."


	9. Nine: Scents and Sensibilities

**Nine: Scents and Sensibilities**

"God gave us memories that we might have roses in December,"

"Courage," J.M. Barrie

There were always perils in sleeping with one's spouse.

Snoring. Stolen covers. Bed hogging. Morning breath. Freezing feet. Being woken up in the middle of the night (or day).

But there were benefits too.

The reassuring presence in the bed beside you. Gentle hands. Warm embraces. The close comfort of it all. The peace. And being woken up in the middle of the night (or day).

Dawn was just beginning to inch its way between the curtains when Grissom started to stir. Gingerly, he rolled over; moved to migrate towards the side where Sara lay sleeping, sound, still and nearly snoring. Then there was the barely brush of breath; the brief caress of a kiss pressed into that small, soft expanse of skin between her shoulder blades; the drift of his fingers along the hem of her camisole that had ridden up during the night to reveal the slight bow of her belly. He eased himself closer, the better to snuggle with his wife, molded his body along hers, and was genuinely surprised to be rewarded not with drowsy murmuring or an appreciative sigh, but with a very loud and suddenly very alert shriek.

"Gil Grissom get your cold feet back on your side of the bed. NOW!"

It didn't take long for his shock to give way to amusement however. Especially when his opting to draw nearer rather than retreat led a shivering Sara to maintain, "I mean it. Your feet are freezing."

Naturally, this only encouraged him to edge his toes further up the cuffs of her loose fitting pajama bottoms. Something that both chilled and tickled all at once.

She squirmed, gave him one last cautionary, "Gil," then an indignant, "I warned you."

And before Grissom knew it, he found himself flat on his back, with Sara perched over and pinning him to the mattress for the second time in less than thirty-six hours. Although the circumstances were slightly different, he wasn't about to complain about it this time either.

Certainly not about the view in any case. From his particular vantage point, he could see right down her thin cotton tank top.

For her part, Sara was having a hard time trying to keep a straight - let alone a stern - face, particularly at the way her husband's eyes quickly flicked back up to hers when she sighed more out of amusement than irritation, "Gil."

A really hard time.

"Socks," she insisted. Her subsequent "I'm serious" suffered from the fact that the corners of her mouth threatened the mutinous curves of a smile.

The truth was at the moment Grissom was thinking more about taking off clothes than putting more on. It was difficult not to, with those bright eyes and flushed cheeks of hers, the way her loose curls fell over both of their faces. She was close, close enough that he could count all the freckles splashed across the bridge of her nose, but not quite close enough to kiss.

He arched his neck to narrow what remained of the distance between them before punctuating the pause between the words of his acquiescent, "Yes, dear," with a kiss.

"You can't sweet talk your way out of having to put socks on."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he replied in all _sincérité. _

Sweet talk or talk of any kind wasn't what he had in mind.

As articulate as Gil Grissom was and could be, and now in more than a few languages, presently he was all for favoring less verbal forms of communication.

He just needed to check one thing first.

"Your plans for today," he began, but Sara cut him off with a vigorous shake of the head and a moan of "Oh no, I quit. No more plans."

"Didn't turn out the way you expected?" Grissom asked unable to keep the mirth from his voice.

Sara thought back to the events of the last few days. _Best laid plans_, indeed.

"_Nothing_ has turned out the way I expected."

"Learned your lesson then?"

It was her turn to chuckle. "What lesson is that?"

To which Grissom sagely intoned, "'When man plans, God laughs.'"

"That's one hell of a sense of humor, Gil."

"So we have a whole unplanned day?"

"Check out's at noon. We have to be in Nice to catch the train a little before six, but other than that -"

"Good."

"Why?" she grinned. "Do you have plans, Gilbert?"

Grissom only kissed her into comprehension.

* * *

In the choice between a morning spent sightseeing or one spent in bed with his wife, there was, even for as inquisitive and erudite a man as Gil Grissom, no contest.

Despite the prospect of untold wonders waiting just outside their door, he possessed absolutely no desire whatsoever to vacate the warmth of the bed, or more precisely the warmth of Sara in the bed beside him. It was just far too rare and precious a pleasure to readily squander.

For these were the sorts of hours by which not dreams, but life was made of.

Although it wasn't quite _l'indulgence clandestine _of_ l'amour dans l'après-midi, _love in the afternoon_, _neither of them could think of a better or more blissful means to while away a Monday morning.

For while the lightheartedness of their earlier tease and tussle had lingered in Grissom's first expository kiss, the second had been far more imploring. By the third, Sara had relaxed against him, having completely surrendered and succumbed to the promise of what was to come.

If sex without love was pointless, sex with love was anything but. And there was only sweetness, no sadness that morning.

Sometime later, still tangled up and slightly breathless beneath the blankets, they lay there for a long while, touching and talking in the way that only lovers do.

Sara momentarily giggled as Grissom nuzzled her neck, the scraggly stubble resultant from three days sans razor tickling her, before the sweep of his lips against her skin turned it into a sigh.

Noting that he left a bit of redness behind, he murmured his apologies and reassured his wife that he would make sure to shave that morning.

Her "No, don't" came out a bit more forceful than Sara intended. She made sure to soften her tone although not her insistence. "Not just yet. I like you scruffy."

Privately pleased by her protests, and even more so by the way she rested her palm along his chin and in how her thumb caressed that bare spot just above his fledgling beard, he willingly yielded and signaled his consent by covering her hand with his own and pressing a kiss into her palm.

Sara smiled, leaned in to kiss him in return before settling back beside him again. She'd taken his hand with her and was tracing his fingers with her own, absorbed it appeared in examining them more by touch than sight. For her eyes had acquired that far off distant look she sometimes got when lost in thought or memory. It must have been a happy one in either case, as he could see her lips begin to twitch into a grin.

"What are you thinking?" asked Grissom gently.

"Your hands," she replied almost absently. "I was thinking about how I used to fantasize about your hands."

Grissom started slightly. Seeming to have sensed his surprise, Sara peered up at him, an amused purse of the lips barely containing her smirk. "And I thought you didn't have a dirty mind."

"That wasn't what I was thinking."

Her "Really?" was as incredulous as it sounded.

"Yeah, really," he nodded, then with a smile of his own said, "I think that makes _you_ the one with the dirty mind, dear."

"Uh huh."

There was a long beat.

"Well?" Grissom prodded.

"Well what?" she asked in return, unable to contain her grin as her husband was giving her that trademark quizzical expression of his, the one where one eyebrow rose higher than the other.

"I ask you what you're thinking and you tell me that you used to fantasize about my hands. Then you wrongfully accuse _me_ of having inappropriate thoughts."

Sara was about to protest his _wrongfully_, but Grissom was still speaking, "And that's it?"

"It's not what you think."

"You take up mind reading lately, Sara? You're stalling."

_True._

"_Fantasize_ isn't the right word exactly," she said. "Not really. I was curious I guess."

"Nothing wrong with curiosity."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know. Just in how you exercise it."

"Curious about?" he asked, sounding it himself.

"What they would feel like."

His eyebrow went up again, causing Sara to remonstrate, "Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter, Gil."

Although she had upon occasion thought about them - and him - like that.

"Okay, sometimes like that," she admitted. "Don't tell me you never thought about it."

"I never said I hadn't."

And he had.

He'd certainly thought about it after that night when she'd gone to brush that nonexistent bit of chalk from his face. As they'd always seemed to have had this strange sort of longstanding unspoken agreement regarding physical contact, that had been the first time she'd touched him, really touched him. That it could be so innocent and yet intimate all at once had startled him. And he'd forgotten, genuinely forgotten the power, the connection that existed in such simple human contact.

So yeah, he'd thought about it. Thought about it more than was likely appropriate for a man in his position or prudent for a man of his reserve.

"But," Grissom maintained, his thoughts returning to the present, "you're still stalling, dear."

As she couldn't exactly dispute that, Sara took another moment and a deep breath before continuing.

"You're always so... deliberate with your hands," she began, the unease in her voice soon giving way to unvarnished honesty. "There's always a focus, a purpose to them and what they do. And yet this gentleness all at the same time. Like you, I guess," she said with a slight smile.

"But you lose so much of the... nuances of touch with latex. Don't get me wrong, most of the time that's a very good thing," she amended, mentally shuddering at some of the things she'd encountered and been grateful there had been even that thin layer of gloves between her and it. "But you can't tell much from the occasional brush. So I wondered what it would feel like -"

"When the gloves were off?"

Though the gloves had been the least of things separating them, they'd been enough. Grissom had spent decades working - living practically - in those gloves. Pair after pair after innumerable pair of them to the point where it really had become true what he'd said to Lurie all those years ago, "The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves."

Grissom gave her hand a gentle squeeze before saying, "You do know what Oscar Wilde had to say about a woman's curiosity."

Sara couldn't help but chuckle at the seemingly abrupt nature of her husband's segue. "I have no idea."

"It's 'almost as great as a man's.'"

Wilde's periodic descents into misogyny aside, Sara knew what Grissom was trying to tell her: she hadn't been alone in being curious.

"So what did you discover?" he continued as verbally enigmatic as ever.

Sara stopped to consider her answer.

"Let's just say there are some times when fantasy doesn't even come close to reality."

Momentarily arrested by that simple surety, all Grissom could do was lean in to kiss her in reply.

They'd both been barely breathing by the time they ultimately broke away.

Then Grissom ran his hand along her bare skin with all that same sort of intent and intensity Sara had spoken of, but for far different purposes. He'd begun by gently easing a stray strand back behind her ear. But the caress really started at the nape of her neck and her eyes closed at the contact. Careful to avoid the still healing tenderness in her shoulder, it slid down the slope of her spine, teased just along the swell of her chest where the catch of her breath came out as a sigh. As his fingers followed the concave of her waist, the convex of her hip, Sara shifted further into his touch and relished in the prospect of its return trip. But it loitered about her ankle instead. Opening her eyes, she found her husband examining with keen interest the tattoo there.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, borrowing his earlier query.

"If you were ever going to tell me the story."

"Of how I got it? What is this, give Sara the third degree day?"

"No, dear."

"Like I told you the last time, you can keep asking -"

Grissom nodded. "But you're still not telling. What, are you worried I'd tell?"

She laughed. "No."

Grissom wasn't one for loose lips, particularly about the sorts of things best kept private.

"It wasn't one of my finer moments," she eventually confessed.

Needless to say, that only served to pique his interest even more, something which must have been plainly evident in his face as Sara soon added, "It's not nearly as interesting as you're imagining, Gil."

He said nothing to this, knowing as he did that Sara would probably fill the silence herself and did.

She let out a resigned "Fine," before saying, "Remember the Candlewell case?"

"Dead guy on a plane not too long after you came to Vegas? Yeah," he replied, but this initial nonchalance quickly gave way to a grin more mischievous than anything. "If I recall, it turned out that you had... uh rather particular first-hand experience when it came to airplane lavatories."

"It was the same trip."

"Ah," he nodded knowingly. "And?"

"And?" she echoed.

"And that's all you're going..."

"To tell you? That's all I've got to say on the subject, yeah."

As she finished, she felt his fingers start to edge their way under her arch and towards the sole of her left foot, a spot they both knew Sara was ticklish.

"And no, you aren't going to be able to tickle the story out of me."

Maybe not, but Grissom didn't see any harm in trying and while Sara jerked her foot away, she wasn't quite quick enough.

Besides, he thought it worth anything she might attempt in return just to hear her laugh like that, laugh until she could barely gasp out "Gil!" in between paroxysms of shrieks.

And attempt retaliation Sara did. Grissom wasn't immune from being ticklish, but as bent on self-preservation as he was, and not nearly out of breath, he managed to thwart said attempt. So Sara opted for beating a safe retreat once she'd squirmed out of his grasp.

Still half-doubled over and breathless she hurriedly scurried off the bed.

"Oh no," she panted as Grissom moved to follow her. "You stay right there."

And she absconded into the bathroom, leaving him still tangled up in the sheets and gaping perplexedly after her.

Gil Grissom wasn't dumbstruck very often. In fact, Sara was one of the few people who ever had that effect on him and while he'd long ago stopped counting how many times she had vanished out of doorways and left him more than a little flummoxed behind, he hadn't expected such a precipitous exit, not then and there.

Unfortunately, the gush of running water drowned out any and all hopes of further communication. He certainly wasn't about to shout after her. Their playful rough-and-tumble had probably lasted all of about ninety-seconds but they'd definitely been making way too much noise for that hour of the morning as it was.

He was halfway out of bed and on his way to go join her, when Sara reemerged and with a firmness he knew better than to argue with insisted that he not get up.

"What about you?" he asked.

"I think I'm a lot safer over here," she rejoined still laughing.

Which did a lot to help ameliorate some of the sudden sick sort of uncomfortable feeling he'd been starting to get in the pit of his stomach in fearing that he may have unintentionally gone a bit too far that morning.

Sara didn't sound upset; seem upset. Still...

Nonplussed, all Grissom could do was watch his wife thieve the shirt he'd worn the night before and despite it being several sizes way too large for her, slip it over her head. She hastily donned a pair of jeans and was swiftly yanking her hair into a hurried ponytail by the time he finally found the gumption to inquire after where she was going.

"Breakfast," came her unconcerned reply as she swung her tote over her shoulder. "Might as well. While I'm up."

When all he could do was continue to gape at her, his bewilderment openly obvious now, Sara smiled. "You have to be hungry. You hardly ate anything last night."

Neither of them had. By the time they'd arrived in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, all either of them had wanted to do was put the day and themselves to bed.

"And," she added her grin growing, "your stomach was certainly rumbling loud enough earlier."

"Sara?"

"Don't worry. I'll be right back," she reassured him.

But he didn't look the least bit soothed.

"What?" she asked now confused herself.

"You aren't mad, are you, about..." his voice trailed off uneasily.

"Should I be?"

"It's just you..." and he motioned to the bathroom door.

Sara laughed, "You've obviously not been tickled enough, Gil," and was happy to see comprehension finally begin to dawn on him.

"I'll be right back," she said again and coming up to where he sat perched on the edge of the bed, bent. He felt something fall into his lap, but before he could discern what it was, found himself distracted by the long, lingering kiss she pressed into his cheek and the "Otherwise, don't bother to get dressed," she whispered into his ear.

He was amused although unsurprised to find she'd dropped a pair of socks into his lap.

* * *

Wherever Sara had set off to in search of breakfast, it couldn't have been far. For Grissom had barely had the chance to get cleaned up and slip on a pair of boxers in addition to the socks when she returned, bringing with her the almost overpoweringly mouthwatering scent of just baked bread and the equally intoxicating aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

Brandishing her spoils, she greeted him with an enthusiastic, "_Voilà. Ma spécialité._ Take-out."

She set down a pair of coffee cups alongside a small French-press _cafetière_ on the small bedside table before unearthing a paper wrapped parcel from her bag. Thankfully, while many businesses in France were closed on Mondays, _les boulangeries_ were not, their bakers up and already at work by four a.m. and well before the crack of dawn, so that no one would be without their morning _pain_.

The coffee had been a bit harder to come by as (thankfully) Starbucks hadn't quite made it to that part of France and although unfortunately in this instance, neither had take-away coffee. But the owner of the small guest house (as the place they were staying in only had four rooms to let, one certainly couldn't consider it _un hôtel_) had been understanding, perhaps a little too understanding if the smile she'd given Sara after a rather lengthy once-over had been any indication.

Sara set about pouring as she continued, "_Un petit déjeuner français traditionnel._ _Café et croissants_."

She was halfway to handing him a steaming cup with a cheery, "_Bon appétit_," when she was caught up short by her husband's, "Actually not that traditional. Or French. Not the croissants at least."

"Oh?" Sara asked. Amused and intrigued at the same time, she simply stood there Grissom's _tasse à café_ still in hand, ready to patiently take in another of her husband's impromptu lectures.

"Austrian," he supplied. "And the buttery rich croissants we think of today didn't appear in France until the early 20th Century.

"Did you know that they used to publicly string up _boulangers_ who produced bread of _qualité inférieure_?_"_

This didn't surprise Sara in the slightest. The French were_ très sérieux_ - very serious in deed - about their bread.

Not utterly oblivious to the fact that his wife was humoring him however, Grissom chose to lean in and murmur, this very much to her surprise, "You are way over-dressed for the occasion, my dear."

"For which occasion is that?"

"For _le petit déjeuner au lit_." Breakfast in bed.

She recovered enough to ask, "What about you?"

"I can follow directions." He followed her gaze to his boxers. "For the most part," he amended.

"Some help then," she said motioning for him to take the mug. Instead, Grissom reached out to pop the snap on her jeans. He eased the stiff fabric over her hips until it pooled onto the floor. Sara, _café_ still in hand, deftly stepped out of them.

"Better?" she asked.

Not quite it seemed. Apparently, her husband was set more on having breakfast _en déshabillé__**. **_For he set about undoing several of the bottom buttons of her - well his - shirt before pressing a kiss into her exposed belly. Sara was enjoying the twin sensations of the heat of his breath and mouth and the roughness of his stubble. Perhaps enjoying it too much, as she was starting to go a little weak at the knees at the contact.

"You might want to stop," she warned. "Unless you want to wear breakfast."

* * *

Grissom had been in France for nearly the better part of a year and so far hadn't gotten over the simple, yet profound pleasure of how freshly made bread warmed the hands as well as the stomach. Today, Sara had added a jar of last year's lavender honey to the usual cream they (in defiance of all American health advisories) slathered on their croissants.

"You might want to save some of that," said Grissom watching her swath honey on the last half of her bread with uncharacteristic abandon.

"I didn't think you were into kinky, Gil," Sara laughed.

"Just in case..."

"We have any more misadventures?" she supplied.

He went to wipe an errant flake from her collar but only succeeded in knocking it into her shirt. Seemingly both of them had forgotten that one most cardinal of tenants regarding breakfast in bed in France: _Attention aux miettes! _- Beware of crumbs.

"Find what you're looking for?" she asked when his hands lingered overlong beneath the fabric.

"I still don't get it," he replied.

"Don't get what?"

"You have perfectly respectable things of your own to wear. Why are you so fond of commandeering -"

"Your shirts? I thought you said you didn't mind."

"I don't."

"You just want to know why."

Grissom nodded.

"I thought the answer would have been obvious."

Apparently not to her husband.

"Mostly, it smells like you," Sara replied. When he continued to look no less perplexed at this she said, "You miss that article in _Psychology Today_ on the role of scent in sexual attraction."

"Obviously."

"I'll email you the link."

"You're here now," he said giving her that imploring look she never could resist.

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

So she did. Explaining how ten years ago this biologist in Switzerland had conducted an experiment where he gave a group of men each a new t-shirt to wear for several days. After they'd done this, he had a group of women smell the shirts and select which ones they found most attractive.

"Women outperform men in smell tests," she added, explaining why the test hadn't been done in reverse. "Better noses.

"And they tended to be consistent about their preferences," she continued, "linking the smells of the most attractive shirts to memories of men they'd been attracted to in the past. Of course that wasn't what was surprising. Scent has always been tied to both primitive and primal drives."

"Hunger, sex, emotion, memory," said Grissom.

"Right. What _was _interesting was that scent seems to be linked to compatibility on a genetic level. Turns out the women tended to pick the shirts of men who were genetically dissimilar to them when it came to certain immunological markers. Meaning that they were unconsciously selecting those who could provide their offspring with the greatest amount of genetic diversity when it came to disease resistance.

"So it turns out that what we think of as sexual chemistry is likely just the unconscious perception of scent-based compatibility."

Grissom gave her a nod of comprehension before saying, "As the human genome carries more than 1,000 olfactory genes, but only 300 for photoreceptors, I guess that means that beauty really is in the nose of the beholder then."

"Attraction is at least, yes," she replied with a smirk. "But bathing habits, perfumes, deodorants, even certain kinds of contraception seem to affect the perception of attraction. So that..."

But at the strange way her husband was staring at her, Sara stopped mid-recitation. She couldn't name the look herself, but for Grissom it was a mixture of wonder, awe and appreciation.

"Don't stop," he said. "I love it when you talk science."

Sara let out another laugh and when she kissed him, her mouth tasted sweet like the honey they'd just eaten and soon neither of them were much interested in anything to do with _Psychology Today_.

"You smell like summer," he murmured once they'd broken apart. "You always have."

Sure there were times when she'd been fresh, really fresh after dumpster duty or dealing with a de-comp. But mostly Sara smelled of summer. Lemons after a particularly gruesome day at the office. On the afternoons when she didn't have to work, of lavender. And every once in a while ever since their honeymoon, of oranges. But always of warmth and light and life.

Sara gawked at him for a moment before regaining enough composure to say, with the lilt of a tease in her voice, "It has other advantages, me wearing your shirt. You can't."

"I'm not seeing the advantage."

"I am."

"Still leaves me one shirt short," he protested.

Giving him a thorough once over she replied, "And I'm not seeing how _that's_ a problem. Except you're still wearing way too many clothes."

"You asked for the socks," he countered.

"The socks can stay. But -"

There was just something about lovemaking. Something in how the having and doing of it frequently only led to the desire for more.

And that morning they'd both ended up wanting seconds of something other than breakfast.


	10. Ten: All Roads

**Ten: All Roads...**

"Life is a journey, not a destination,"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

_With much affection and gratitude to all you long-suffering and ever-patient readers out there who've stuck with me and the adventure, particularly as I'm not quite ready for it all to end just yet. Without you, it really is all just scribbles on a page or ones and zeroes in the computer, so thanks for bringing it all to life._

* * *

Blissfully uneventful was the best way to describe their return trip. No flat tires. Or getting lost. Or almost running out of gas. And not even a hint of carsickness. Their fellow drivers were just as obnoxious, but they'd come to expect that.

So even with a brief detour to Riez for lunch, they arrived in Nice with plenty of time to spare. With enough time to stop for ice cream even. Neither could resist the temptation of a second visit to Fenocchio's, although Sara did shake her head when her husband ordered _vanille_ to go along with his scoops of _glaces au miel-pignons and à la cannelle._

It was a bit of a hike from where they'd dropped off their rental, but considering they'd just spent nearly three hours cooped up in the Golf and would very shortly be confined for ten more on the train, the last thing either Grissom or Sara were interested in doing was sitting around Gare de Nice-Ville. Instead, they dropped off their bags at the station and headed off to stretch their legs. And have ice cream.

Although ice cream did not a real dinner make. In light of Sara's previous experience with the rather limited vegetarian-friendly options of_ la nourriture de train_, they both thought it better to attempt to hunt down all the fixings for _un pique-nique provençal_.

Unfortunately as it was a Monday, and on Mondays Nice's famed Cours Saleya traded in its colorful buckets of blooms and palates of fresh fruits and vegetables for displays of art and artifacts of the antique variety, they had to settle for shopping in the many small _épiceries_ that populated le Vieux Nice. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing as _les épiceries_ were the French equivalent of the American deli, albeit frequently a bit more posh. Their selection of tinned and ready-made food was perfect for taking along on the train.

Grissom excused himself for a few minutes while Sara debated over which cheese to pair with _les_ _figues sèches farcies aux noix et aux graines de fenouil, _thelocal figs stuffed with fennel and walnuts, she'd already chosen. She was still at it when he returned bag in hand.

"Instructional materials," he supplied at her inquiring glance and withdrew an Italian phrase book.

Which came as no surprise really. On the drive in, they'd joked about doing a crash course in _l'italiano_ on the train. Except as this was France after all, apparently all the books they had at the local _librairie_ were _en français_.

So Sara wasn't quite convinced of his purchase's actual usefulness. When she said as much to him, Grissom only smiled and reminded her that she was always complaining about not getting enough French practice.

While he did have her there, Sara only shook her head with a sigh and suggested he should make himself useful by helping pick out dinner.

* * *

As the first leg of their journey only covered the forty kilometers between Nice and the Italian border town of Ventimiglia, they decided the best use of the not quite hour was just to sit back, relax and enjoy one last view of the French Riviera.

It was too bad they were a several hours too early to watch the sun set into _la Méditerranée_. Not that they hadn't had their share of spectacular sunsets this trip. The one just the night before had been amazing. Despite the fact they'd been bone tired from the day's misadventures, the two of them had paused long enough to watch in wonder the way the sun gilded the surrounding cliffs and Medieval stone house of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. For they'd managed to be in the right place at just the right time, at that almost magical moment where light becomes more than just brightness and the ordinary world takes on an extraordinary splendor.

Not that one could or should complain about their current vistas: flashes of sea and sky between the tunnels; glimpses of small sun-kissed towns. It was easy to understand why people flocked here and why it remained one of the most expensive places in the world to live.

The train being a bit close and warmer than it was outside, Sara stripped off her jacket and folded it over in her lap, an act that her having done it innumerable times before should have passed without comment, but for some reason, Grissom let out a soft, admonishing, "Sara..."

Startled, she turned and was about to ask "What?" but he beat her to the questioning.

"Your bites still bugging you?"

She rolled her eyes, replied, "Funny, Gil," before admitting, "Yeah. But no more toothpaste," she moaned as he went to reach for the bag at his feet.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah," she reluctantly conceded. "But-"

"This will work even better, promise," he said, twisting the cap from a small amber bottle. And suddenly the air was redolent with floral richness.

Recognizing the scent, Sara couldn't help but smile. "Lavender oil," she said.

He nodded. "Turns out Provence produces nearly 80% of the world's lavender," he said as he began to dab it on her bites. "Did you know it takes 10,000 flowers to make up one kilo of petals and nearly a ton of petals to make just a liter and a half of essence?"

Sara did the math in her head. "That's over nine million flowers. No wonder it isn't cheap."

"That and the best stuff grows at 3000 feet in the Alps. But it should help with the itching in any case. And keep you from getting bitten."

"I don't think we're going to have to worry about mosquitoes on the train," Sara laughed. "Although it certainly smells better than the toothpaste. So that's what took you so long in that shop in Riez, a lavender oil tutorial?"

Grissom shrugged. "He talked. I listened."

"And learned I see."

"It will help with your sunburn too, but," he said indicating the public nature of the compartment and the fact Sara was wearing a short sleeved top, "we'll have to wait until Italy for that."

"It's actually not bad right now. That tea remedy of yours from yesterday seemed to do the trick."

She'd been skeptical if not downright dubious the day before. Perplexed, too, when just before they were about to depart the small café they'd stopped in for dinner, Grissom ordered a mug of hot tea and a couple of glasses of ice cubes, not something they usually ordered. For while the French were known for a great many things, making a decent cup of tea wasn't really one of them.

"Not for drinking," he assured her as he bobbed the tea bag up and down to speed up the rate of diffusion. "Your sunburn."

"Tea for sunburn? I don't think I've heard that one."

"The tannic acid will stop the progress of the damage and soothe the skin. Cut down on the inflammation, too."

She gave him a rather reluctant "Okay," in reply, watching him pour the tea over the ice.

"Would work better with a bathtub," he shrugged, "But this should help for now."

In his usually adept French, Grissom told the café owner he'd be right back with his glasses as he tugged a still bemused looking Sara back to their car. He rooted around in his bag for a moment before pulling out a worn undershirt and liberally soaking it in tea.

"That's going to stain, you know," she warned, though he seemed utterly unconcerned. His ripping the shirt in two rendered it a moot point in any case.

While his lightly pressing the damp cloth against her shoulders caused her to wince, the discomfort was soon replaced by a welcome coolness.

"Hold it on there for now," he said and she did however awkwardly. Her hands thus occupied, Grissom draped the used tea bag over one of her fingers, telling her, "You can use that as a compress on the worst parts."

And he disappeared inside to replace the glasses.

When he returned, Sara was still shaking her head about the absurdity of the whole thing.

"I can just hear it now," she said as he helped her into the car. "_Ils sont fous ces américans._ They're crazy those Americans."

But as crazy as the remedy had seemed, it worked. She'd been tempted to ask him where he'd learned that one. But Sara had a pretty good idea of the answer. Internet insomnia was good for one thing: picking up seemingly esoteric facts that just might come in handy one day.

Thankfully, the changeover at Ventimiglia went without a hitch. Sara had picked up just enough Italian on the flight over to be able to work out the signs and directions. Not that that would come all that handy once they left _Stazione di Roma Termini_.

So their first priority once they'd validated their tickets and found the _carrozza,_ and _sedie_, indicated on their tickets was to set to work on their Italian. Well second, as one couldn't learn Italian on an empty stomach.

Sara unpacked a freshly baked baguette, undid the raffia ribbon and unwrapped the chestnut leaves from a pungent round of _Banon à la feuille_, set out a packet of tiny, glossy purple-black _Nicoise_ olivesbesidesone of figs and a small carton of _petites gariguettes précoces,_ those small, first of the season strawberries.

They set about their makeshift feast with gusto, enjoying the almost wild taste of the berries, the hints of _lavande_ and _thym _that the goats had fed on in the cheese, that one last taste of Provence in the figs and olives.

After a few minutes, Grissom withdrew his newly purchased _le français-l'italiano_ phrase book. As he began to thumb through it, Sara sighed, "You never do anything the easy way, do you?"

"Beggars can't be choosers," he rejoined. "It was this or a picture book. I thought we were a bit more advanced than that."

"Speak for yourself," she countered. "And while your French may be good enough to learn Italian with, I'm not so sure about mine."

"All the more reason for more practice."

"Yeah, well not everyone's brain works as well as yours."

For getting older certainly hadn't slowed Grissom down mentally. And as admirable and handy as that could be, sometimes it was downright disgusting.

"Or," Sara suggested, wiping off her fingers on a napkin before reaching into her pack for her iPhone, "we could just step into the 21st Century, Gil. _Collins Phrasebook and Dictionary_," she said clicking the app open to demonstrate. "Has 2,000 survival phrases and a dictionary, plus native speakers to listen to. I also downloaded _Basic Italian for Dummies_ before I got on the plane. And the _Lonely Planet Rome City Guide_ in case you're curious. Amazing, isn't it what technology can do these days?"

Choosing to ignore the jibe and instead indicating the phone she'd placed in front of him, Grissom said, sounding slightly incredulous as he did so, "The department actually sprung for one of those?"

Sara scoffed. "On Ecklie's budget, what do you think?"

True. Grissom had spent plenty of time over the years lobbying for new tech and equipment for the lab - lobbying, begging, writing grants to pay for it or if none of that worked, trolling eBay. Things had improved over the last decade, but not _that_ much.

Grissom sank back into his seat. "I think I'll stick to my book."

"Suit yourself," Sara shrugged. "Once old school always old school, eh?"

"There's nothing wrong with old school."

"No, of course not," she laughed.

"Is that a challenge?"

Sara considered the possibility for a moment.

They were pretty well matched. Neither had been shy in admitting they knew very little actual Italian. Whatever head start she might have had from the bit of studying she'd done on the flight over had been diluted by lack of use and the distraction of the last several days to the point of negligibility really. Grissom's fondness for _l'opera_ _italiana_ of Puccini and Verdi didn't give him much of an advantage. True, it was Italian, but Italian in the same way that Shakespeare was English and yet sounded so foreign to many a modern ear. He did have his Latin, which was better than hers, as was his French and Spanish, but hers were still good and should help as long as all those tricky cognates didn't get in the way. Sara certainly wasn't about to let any of that keep her from trying.

So she replied, "Why not?" After all, there was nothing wrong with a little healthy competition between spouses. "Terms?"

"Do there need to be any?" he asked.

The look she gave him plainly said _Yeah_.

"Loser..." she began, pausing to think of something appropriate.

While besting Gil Grissom at anything was a _coup d'état_ and the satisfaction of being able to say _I told you so_ was something in and of itself, she wanted a little more than that.

The readiness with which Grissom cut in with a, "I'm sure you'll think of something, dear," caused Sara to purse her lips and say, "You already have something in mind. Feeling a little cocky, Gil?"

He only flashed her one of those enigmatic Cheshire Cat grins.

"Fine," she replied. "You're on."

* * *

No matter what the titles of certain language learning products promise, you really can't learn a language during a transatlantic flight. You can pick up enough to be polite and get around and understand just enough that you don't make a complete and utter ass of yourself, but that's about the extent of it. So neither Grissom nor Sara had any illusions of achieving real fluency.

Sara had barely managed to exhume her headphones from the depths of her bag, having had no need for them since the Thursday before, when her husband peeked up at her from over his reading glasses to say, "You'll be happy to hear that married women are still known by their maiden names in Italy. At least legally."

"What, you don't like being called _Mr. Sidle_?" came Sara's playful rejoinder.

Actually, Grissom didn't mind in the least and had already been mentally practicing the phrase _Questa è mia moglie Sara_ - This is my wife Sara - something he was still enjoying getting used to saying in both French and English. Even after more than a year, it still caught him by pleasurable surprise when Sara introduced him as her husband.

Sara shared his smile as she slipped her earbuds in.

And the two of them began studying in earnest, passing a quiet, intensely studious half hour before Sara set down her phone for a moment in the lull between lessons to reach over and pop a couple of leftover olives into her mouth.

Grissom took advantage of this apparent break to close his book for a moment and say, "Did you know that the greeting _Ciao!_ has its roots in the Venetian word _sciao_ from the Latin _scalavus_ meaning slave or servant. It's short for the Italian phrase: _Sono vostro schiavo, '_I am your servant.'"

"Like the closing in a Victorian letter: 'Your humble servant'?" Sara supplied.

He nodded. "Exactly."

Sara found she couldn't help but tease, "Brushing up on your etymology along with your Italian, just in case?"

And Grissom knew she was recalling the time they'd been introduced to a pair of rather batty old English sisters at one of those faculty lectures Grissom could never get out of going to, particularly when they'd first arrived in Paris. The women were visiting their young nephew who was in the process of finishing up his doctorate in Comparative Linguistics at the Sorbonne. As neither woman knew any French at all, they'd been thrilled to be introduced to someone they could actually converse with.

Of course having a language in common hadn't completely eliminated all chances of misunderstanding.

For when he'd told them he was teaching a couple of courses in entomology that year, the older of the two women smiled and politely said, "Are you enjoying your appointment to the Linguistic Department then?"

Grissom was about to just nod and let the whole thing drop, when the younger one nudged her sister and muttered not quite under her breath, "_Entomology_, Mabel, not Etymology. Bugs," she supplied when Mabel continued to look clueless.

From Mabel's awkward, "Oh, yes. Yes, I see," and the squeamish look the both of them were giving Grissom, Sara quickly decided it was better not to mention that she was a crime scene investigator. Besides, most of the time people were either really grossed out or way too curious about the whole thing.

Back in the present, Grissom only chuckled as he went back to his book.

* * *

Not too much later, he let out a low murmuring, "Hmm."

Resigned to the discussion she knew would eventually come, Sara withdrew an earbud and waited for her husband to share whatever had caught his interest.

"I never thought of it that way," he said, still rather cryptically.

"Never thought of what?" Sara prompted.

"The at symbol, like in an email address. It's called_ chiocciola _or _chiocciolita,_ 'little snail.' It actually does resemble a little snail."

After all the time she'd spent with Grissom over the years, Sara was used to his sometimes frequent non-sequitur interruptions, the mentions of philosophy over breakfast, movies at a crime scene, bugs in bed. It never ceased to amaze her how her husband's mind worked.

Of course what Sara hadn't realized was that she'd begun to pick up the habit. Not that her coworkers had missed it. Perhaps it was true what they say about people starting to resemble their spouses.

"It's a fairly common description in many other languages," she said. At the inquisitive way he was gazing at her, she continued on with, "As the symbol didn't come into popular usage until its adoption for use in email in 1971, most languages still use the names they had for the typographical symbol. Snail is pretty common. So is monkey or monkey tail. In Danish it translates as 'elephant trunk'; in Greek, 'duckling'; Russian, 'little dog' and in several Chinese dialects as 'little mouse.' You'd like the Hungarian version, it's the same word for worm or maggot."

Grissom looked suitably impressed. "Internet insomnia, dear?" he asked.

Sara shook her head. "No. Archie and I were in A/V one night waiting for a file to process. The subject came up."

He knew better than to ask how.

* * *

No matter how diligent the student, there is only so much cramming a brain can take. After the first hour and a half, Sara was pretty much ready to call it quits for the night although she wasn't about to admit it.

So she was more relieved than annoyed when Grissom tapped on the table in front of her to get her attention. She glanced up to see him motioning for her to take out her headphones.

Which she did, letting out in a long sigh of feigned irritation, "I am trying to study here."

"Some help please," said Grissom.

"Since when do you need help?"

Disregarding her cheek, Grissom patiently pushed on saying, "Could you quiz me on irregular verbs?"

Sara shot him a _You have to be kidding_ glare in response. Conjugating verbs was one of her least favorite grammar exercises, if it were possible to have a favorite grammar exercise in the first place. Thankfully, French had less than a hundred common irregular verbs. She wasn't so sure she'd be so lucky with Italian.

Readily apprehending his wife's reluctance, Grissom gave her that pathetically imploring look of his that they both knew Sara had never been able to resist and said, "Just one then."

She held out her hand for the book.

She scanned the text. "Which one?"

"_Volere_: to want, to wish, need or require," he supplied, then recalling that the page was in French and not English added, "_Vouloir."_

"My French isn't _that_ rusty," she said, shaking her head. And catching sight of the multitude of case tables said, "Let's stick to the present for now."

Seemingly effortlessly Grissom rattled off, "_Voglio, vuoi, vuole, vogliamo, volete, vogliono,_" without a single mistake.

Yes, his faculties when it came to rote memorization really were disgusting, Sara mused, although she kept this resentment to herself. Instead, she handed him his book back, saying, "See, you didn't need my help at all."

"Maybe I should try it in a sentence," Grissom answered.

At this point purely humoring him, Sara indicated he should continue.

"_Voglio biciarti. Vuoi baciarmi_?"

"That's two sentences," she chided, but continued anyway. "'I want to...'" She paused, her brow furrowing as she tried to puzzle out the second verb, but she came up blank, "'...something you. Do you want to something me?' I'm not familiar with that infinitive," she confessed.

Grissom leaned in. "_En français: embrasser_. _En español: besar. _In English..."

"To kiss," Sara finished with a smile, then laughed, "Are you flirting with me in Italian?"

"Trying and failing apparently," he rued.

"Not failing," she emended. "It's just been a while since you've had to ask."

They both leaned in to narrow the expanse of table between them.

But Grissom's reading glasses got in the way and the obstruction abruptly startled them out of the private world of their _tête-à-tête_ and brought them back to the reality of that while _prima classe _was at that time of the night fairly quiet, even with no one in the seats across the aisle or behind them, the train wasn't exactly private.

They exchanged nearly identical sheepish, almost guilty grins as they each retreated, but not before Sara mouthed, "Later."

Grissom nodded and if he was momentarily disappointed, seemed pleased at the future prospect.

* * *

Sara was quite willing to take the hint that perhaps they should pursue less academic amusements for the hour that remained before they arrived in Genova. Needing to stretch her legs for a bit, she gathered up the meager remains and detritus from their makeshift supper and went to dispose of the refuse in the trash bin at the far end of the compartment. She returned to find that in her absence, Grissom had folded up and stowed the table as well as replaced his French-Italian phrase book with another title.

"Please tell me you aren't reading that in the original French," she said as she sank into her seat.

"Only half," Grissom replied, showing her how the left hand side of his volume of Voltaire's magnum opus, _Candide, ou l'Optimisme,_ contained an English translation. Although Sara doubted he even bothered with it as it was currently covered with a blank sheet of paper.

"Now you're just showing off."

"It's good for picking up _l'idiome français _in conversation," he contended as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do.

Sara knew better than to argue, even if she didn't see how reading the 18th Century satirical and picaresque bildungsroman _conte philosophique_ could be considered a leisurely employment. But this was Grissom after all, the man who found the Sunday edition of the New York Times crossword relaxing.

Which reminded her.

"I almost forgot," she said. "I brought you something. I meant to give it to you earlier."

Not being privileged to his wife's train of thought, Grissom looked understandably bemused as he watched her dig through her tote.

Eventually, she unearthed a small, but well-stuffed manila envelope.

He took it both a little leery and intrigued all at once. For a moment, he thought it was just the mail she usually brought over whenever she came, but when he opened the flap, he found it contained something else entirely: rectangles of neatly cut newspaper, which perplexed him at first until he flipped a couple over to find they were copies of the New York Times crossword clipped from _The Las Vegas Sun_.

"I've missed it," Sara said. "You and your puzzles."

For she hadn't seen him as much as pick up one since he'd left Vegas. They'd been paperless out in the rainforest for all those months in Costa Rica and while he regularly read the news in _Le Monde_ and _The Times_ and a few other English language newspapers in Paris, he hadn't gotten back into the habit again. Of course he could have always paid the monthly subscription fee and been able to download thousands of puzzles to print out, but Grissom was the sort of purist who preferred the feel of newsprint beneath his fingers.

As he quietly thumbed through the stack, Sara handed him a pen and said, "Not everything has to change, Gil."

He met her gaze at this and nodded with a soft grateful smile.

"I could only come up with about a month's worth," she explained. "And I was lucky to get those. Thankfully, they don't empty the newspaper recycling at the lab all that often. It'll just have to last you until next time."

Grissom thought he was lucky that they hadn't first been turned into origami, all things considered.

"Thanks," he said and meant it.

And Sara was pleased to see him start on one.

* * *

"Interesting choice of reading material," Grissom murmured as Sara cracked open a book of her own.

"It's not Voltaire, but..." she teased in return. "Actually, I picked it up for you. I thought it would amuse you - and Hank."

Grissom took a closer look at the cover. "_A Dog's Life_?"

"What it's like to be a dog in Provence, from the dog's point of view," she supplied by way of elucidation.

"What happened to your book?" he asked, as Sara had been adamant about him bringing a book along just in case.

"Finished it on the ride over. And no," she replied with a smirk, "before you ask, it wasn't a crime book."

* * *

They spent the rest of their ride with Grissom busy with his puzzle and Sara with her nose buried in her book, occupations they'd shared countless times before and relished in now. Occasionally, he'd puzzle out a clue aloud and Sara would share interesting or amusing tidbits from what she was reading.

"'Punishment in our house, as in the legal system generally,'" she began, "'depends not only on the gravity of the offense but also - and this is possibly more important - on the mood and general disposition of the presiding judge and the jury. There are days when a petty misdemeanor can lead to physical retribution and temporary exile; on other occasions, all you get for the same infringement is a verbal warning and half an hour's probation, with remission for good behavior. A tricky thing, justice, you can never tell which way it's going to jump.'"

"You always were a softy," Grissom observed, without bothering to look up from his paper. "He misses you, you know," he added. "He always does."

What he thought but didn't say was_ So do I_.

Though Sara felt very much the same, in fact she'd found herself struck with a sudden pang of longing for the boxer as she'd watched the resident canine of the café they'd stopped in the day before lie snoring in the late Sunday afternoon sun, she said, "He probably enjoys having half the bed to himself."

Hank certainly seemed to take every opportunity when she was around to take over Grissom's space. The last time she'd been in Paris, on her first night back, they'd been reading in bed just before going to sleep. Grissom had gotten up to go to the bathroom only to return to find Hank with his head on Sara's stomach (and her stroking him absently and yet affectionately behind the ears) while the rest of him was sprawled over his master's side of the mattress. Grissom, slightly aggrieved at being so readily supplanted had grumbled about not having been gone THAT long. Needless to say, Hank hadn't been pleased to be evicted from such a coveted spot.

"He's the only one," Grissom replied.

"Yeah," Sara agreed.

But as neither of them really wanted to waste the time they actually still had together already aching with the missing that was sure soon to come, they quickly went back to immersing themselves in their respective distractions.

From time to time, Sara would let out a muffled chuckle causing Grissom to grin into his newsprint. He could tell she was trying to be quiet. Mostly she succeeded. Until the laughter finally overcame her, and unable to control it, she tittered loudly.

Grissom's head shot up, and Sara genuinely expected him to look at least a little reproachful, considering how sacrosanct his crosswords had always been, but he didn't. If anything he looked amused.

She laughed out an apologetic, "Sorry. It just turns out that you and Boy, that's the name of the dog, have something in common. Problems with chickens," she explained. "There's a whole chapter on it. 'Ordeal by Chicken.'"

Familiar with the incident she was referring to, Grissom said, "Very funny."

"Well not so much for the chicken," rejoined Sara. "While Boy didn't manage to catch his chicken either, the poor hen apparently died of a heart attack afterwards."

Grissom couldn't summon up any sympathy for the unfortunate fowl. The last time he'd been the one who was about to have the heart attack. And never able to forget or forgive the way the hen - aptly named in his opinion _Lucy_ - who had flown the coop on him and led him on a not so merry chase had just calmly gone to sleep in Sara's arms, he wasn't all that fond of that particular species of feathered friend.

* * *

They were about fifteen minutes out of Genova Piazza Principe when Sara let her book fall absently open in her lap. She was at the moment far more intent on watching her husband, absorbed and intent and meticulous as he was. An involuntary grin tugged at the corners of her cheeks at the way his reading glasses always managed to slip to the very end of his nose in that winsome way she loved so much.

Sara had missed it just as much as she'd told him she had. Missed him, too.

While they found ways to meet in the middle - the phone calls and her periodic visits helped - it was still hard being apart as much as they were.

And she was struck by the sudden realization that she wasn't sure she would ever get used to it. To the reality of being together.

All too often it felt too good to be true.

True, things weren't perfect. It wasn't as if being married had automatically solved all their problems, changed the past or healed all their hurts. They still disagreed, argued from time to time, managed to find ways to get on each other's nerves, said or did the wrong things, mostly unintentionally.

And yet things were better now than they'd ever been. The innocent ribbing, private jokes and ease they'd enjoyed in the beginning of their relationship more than a decade ago had returned, only to deepen and there was both surety and comfort to be found in knowing they were in this life together no matter what.

So things weren't perfect, but there were moments, moments like this one when it felt like it.

It had taken Sara a long time to recognize what that tug in her chest meant.

It was happiness. Pure and simple happiness.

For so long she hadn't possessed the word for it, happiness not having been something she ever had expected. And yet, she was happy in ways she had never known, never dreamed of being.

It reminded her of that day they'd been out on that case of the dead boxer at the Sugar Cane Ranch where talk of sex had turned to that of love and he'd surprised her as his confessions so often were wont to do, in the simplicity of his saying, "No, you make me happy."

And Sara blurted out much the same now, even before she realized she'd spoken.

Not that she regretted her words. She knew she never told him enough, but Grissom wasn't the only one who sometimes had problems putting his feelings into words.

Although he seemed to understand. For when his eyes flashed up to meet hers, they shared that same sort of knowing smile they had that day all those years ago. And something more.

* * *

To read more about Grissom chicken encounter see Fowl Play, the fourth chapter in the Meanwhile series.


	11. Eleven: Rome with a View

**Eleven: Rome with a View**

"_Eine Welt zwar bist du, o Rom; doch ohne die Liebe_

_Wäre die Welt nicht die Welt, wäre denn Rom auch nicht Rom_."

Rome, thou art a whole world, it is true, and yet without love

This World would not be the World, Rome would cease to be Rome.

"Roman Elegies I,"_ Erotica Romana_, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

* * *

Merci beaucoup, mille grazie_ - no matter how you say it, much thanks to KB for humoring all my dreadful mistakes in French and now Italian. You have of course my apologies... _

_And thanks to A for giving me the perfect way to first experience Rome._

_Wow_.

There was no other word for it.

Just wow.

So however inarticulate the expression might be, that was what Sara murmured, overwhelmed as she was to the point of having to sink onto one of the cold stone benches just to be able to take it all in.

Working Grave as long as she had, Sara had seen her share of sunrises, but this was something else entirely.

Beneath the paling indigo sky tinged lavender and mauve with a day just beginning to blush rose, _la città eterna_ was awaking.

Though much of the other six of Rome's famous hills were, like the sun at their backs, from their perch along the balcony of il Giardino degli Aranci much of the city stilllay before them. Nearly near enough to touch, the once diluvial Tiber sedately snaked, both of its banks punctuated by innumerable terra cotta rooftops. Bell towers rose. Spires stretched into the sky. Off in the distance, the imposing Baroque dome of St. Peter's Basilica loomed gilt gold in the half-light.

The raw awe of the spectacle certainly made the journey worth it.

* * *

Earlier that morning, Sara had begun to have her doubts.

A few days before as they'd sat in a small cafe in Riez trying to recover from their misadventure rife road trip, Sara had merely given her husband an almost disbelieving weary shake of the head once he'd finished explaining in that almost maddeningly placid way of his that one should actually expect travel to be laborious, problematic, even painful. It was after all, inherent to the very meaning of the word. _Travel _sharing as it did the same Latin etymological root and meaning as _travail_ - _tripalium_, an ancient three-staked instrument of Roman torture.

By the time they'd disembarked at la Stazione di Roma Termini into the great cavernous expanse which_ i romani _had affectionately nicknamed_ il dinosauro_, Sara was certain the ancients had it right.

For the night before they'd arrived late into Genova's Piazza Principe station. The train from Ventimiglia running uncharacteristically - at least to their admittedly limited experience with European train travel - particularly behind schedule. By the time they'd deciphered the departures board, located the proper platform, validated their tickets, and retired to their compartment, they were vexed and breathless though genuinely relieved at not having missed the night train to Rome, particularly as the next one wasn't scheduled to leave for another six hours and neither was interested in trying to find a hotel in the middle of the night.

That mad midnight rush had led them both to rather ruefully agree with Ruskin's more than century old view that "modern traveling is not traveling at all, it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel."

As it was still dark when they arrived in Rome and they were both still more than a little sleepy, they stopped in one of the station's many coffee bars to fortify themselves with the traditional Italian morning beverage of choice:_ un cappuccino. _The tiny, rich fragrant cups of espresso naturally sweetened with the airy light _crema_ proved nothing like the Starbucks variety of the same name back home. Even the strong _café parisien_ they'd frequently indulged in the _cafés_ along the Boulevard Saint-Michel paled by comparison.

With the hiss and spit of the espresso machine in the background, the two of them took their places standing at the bar and as the locals did, gulped not sipped their _tazze di caffè_.

Thus fortified, Grissom tugged her towards the exit with what Sara thought to be undue urgency, unable as she was to imagine what all the hurry was for. It wasn't even light out yet. Everything was closed. They'd been lucky to get coffee at the station.

Her husband however didn't seem to be all that keen on enlightening her, despite the fact that apparently not only had he a very particular destination in mind, but a very particular time to get there.

Not that Sara could rightly protest or complain. Not really. Not after all the wait and sees she'd sprung on him this week. Besides, it wasn't as if she hadn't trailed after Grissom with little or no explanation on numerous occasions before.

All he asked her as they'd stepped out into the street was, "Not adverse to walking are you?"

To which she had shaken her head. After the nearly twelve hours on the train, Sara knew how good it would feel to stretch her legs and it wasn't as if they were exactly burdened with luggage. She routinely carted around heavier kits to crime scenes.

Outside in the Piazza dei Cinquecento, they paused only long enough for Grissom to retrieve Sara's iPhone from his coat pocket, him having in the wee hours of the morning earlier commandeered the device. He took his bearings, checked his directions one last time and they set off on foot through the maze of mostly dark narrow streets.

At that hour, they had the city pretty much to themselves. Apparently only tourists and those who catered to them did early mornings, and then seldom this early. But then like Vegas, Rome's biggest business was tourism. More than 100,000 visitors a day descended on the city to partake of the art and architecture, ruins and monuments. They came for the history and the passion, to worship - of the retail as well as religious varieties. And for the food.

Frequently, Grissom checked the phone, ostensibly or so Sara gathered, to make sure they were going the right way. At least it proved easier to navigate via GPS here than it had been in the rain forests of Costa Rica. There were a few more signposts in any case.

The long line of hotels and shops eventually gave way to locales far less _moderno_ as they followed the natural rise and falls of the _sette colli di Roma_. The iconic grand arcades of il Colosseo burned bright ochre in the emerging light. As the grounds were still closed, they skirted the periphery of the once great Roman Forum where _la civiltà_ was born and Julius Caesar crowned _dictator perpetuus - _dictator for eternity- before he was assassinated a mere month later. Sadly, little remained of the Circus Maximus' ancient chariot racing stadium apart from the grass-covered tracks.

Not that Sara saw much more than hurried glimpses of any of it. For whatever reason they rushed past. Although having seemingly sensed his wife's baffled disappointment, Grissom did promise that they'd return later for a better look.

Up the Aventine Hill, along the tranquil Via di Santa Sabina, they followed the long stretch of graffitied mortar and brick wall until Grissom stopped short at a small opening in a rusted iron gate. Where exactly they were or how he'd even known how to find it, Sara had no clue. But through it proved to be their destination: the lush green haven of Parco Savello.

The gravel crackling noisily beneath their feet, they strolled a great deal more sedately now beneath the shelter and shade of the towering umbrella pines' crooked parasols.

"I thought," said Grissom by way of eventual explanation as they climbing the last couple of steps of an expansive terrace, arrived just in time to catch the sun begin to bathe all of Rome in gold, "you might like to see where we're going."

There were times when Gil Grissom could be quite the showman.

* * *

Far more leisurely, the two of them explored the rest of the small oasis of oleander, pine, and orange trees that gave the garden its name.

Legend had it that it was here that St. Dominic planted Rome's first orange tree, a sapling he'd brought from his Spanish homeland which had continued to inexplicably flourish for centuries.

Pausing to linger under the heavily flowered and fragrant boughs of an especially fine specimen of _Citrus aurantium_, Grissom let out a long, appreciative whisper of, "Paradise."

Sara hummed in incomprehension.

"It's paradise. Literally," he said gesturing to their surroundings, rich as they were in mid spring's blush and blossom. "From the French _paradis _andthe Greek _paradeisos, _both from the Iranian or Avestan word_ pairi-daeza_, an enclosed or walled garden. Just like this one. Hence paradise."

Sara only smiled. Not all that into exercises of futility, she had long ago stopped trying to come up with a subject her husband knew nothing about. And although she was not above teasing him about this fact, he was already fast intent on something else.

The better to breathe in deep the sweet, almost intoxicating fragrance, Grissom drew a low hanging branch nearer. He fondly fingered the fleshy white petals before burrowing his nose in them.

Like most scents, it defied easy description, for smell went beyond thought. _Orange_ wasn't exactly right, although he could almost feel the spritz of the fruit being peeled; taste the sticky sweetness. But the blossoms were a scent something else entirely: heady, luxuriant, dizzily intoxicating. This close, he could practically feel the scent on his skin.

Awash and overcome, he closed his eyes and was momentarily transported beyond time and space. The clear, white Roman morning light suddenly burned brighter, warmer. The crash and retreat of ocean waves replaced the distant whir of traffic. And in his mind's eye, he saw her: Sara, the hint of blue shimmer to her dress flashing like the iridescence of a butterfly's wing. Her one hand shielding her eyes from the glare of the setting sun dropping to take his outstretched one as she descended the stairs. How the warmth in her voice matched the light in her eyes and the brightness of her smile, radiant as she was. And in her hair, streaked honey from all the sun, she'd humored him and tucked a cluster of orange blossoms in the curls behind each ear so that when he'd leaned in to kiss her for the first time as husband and wife, their bouquet had wafted over him.

Then later, in the faint flicker of lamplight, the petal's softness had caressed his fingertips as he eased them from her hair. The brush of her lips on his, the hot taste of her mouth. The breath of a sigh that became a moan. And accidentally crushing the flowers beneath them as they made love that night, the redolence only heightened in the air, mingled with the musk and sweat and sensation of skin on skin.

The remembrance had taken all of the five second span of a single inhale and exhale of breath, though it had felt far longer and shorter all at once. Back in the present, the heart thundering breathlessness gave way to a measure of hope and joy and peace.

Grissom motioned for Sara to come closer to smell for herself. Which she did, leaning over his shoulder, her body close to his, so close, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest, the tickle of her in and expiration. The act itself both simultaneously utterly innocent and intimate.

Real and alive and present in the here and now as she was, Sara proved altogether far more overpowering than any memory. The contact caused an explosion of sensations Grissom had only relatively recently become _au fait_ with.

Often, perhaps too often, she'd done that, affected him just by being near. Had, truth be told, ever since they'd first met. Grissom would have thought that a decade of proximity would have tempered the sensation; it never had.

He turned to watch the pleasure play about her face, wondered for a moment if she was remembering much the same as he had done.

When her eyes reopened, he whispered, "You're still _mi media naranja_."

_The other half of my orange. My other half. Better half. _

And Sara's earlier affectionate grin turned tender at this simple, unadorned, unlooked for declaration of love that was frequently of the sort her husband tended to favor and which never failed to stop her heart and make her smile. Although it wasn't as if these days Gil Grissom didn't say or do six seemingly inexplicable things even before breakfast.

She touched his cheek, her thumb tracing its familiar route there before replacing her hand with a light, yet long, lingering kiss.

Then for only him to hear, she murmured, "I love you," into his ear.

When she drew back, they were both beaming.

"See," he said, "paradise."


	12. Twelve: Another Paradise

**Twelve: Another Paradise and a Stairway to Heaven**

"Few great works of art last longer to the curiosity, to the perpetually transcended attention. You think you have taken the whole thing in, but it expands, it rises sublime again, and leaves your measure itself poor."

_The Italian Hours_, Henry James

* * *

"So," Sara began, shifting her tote over her shoulder as they stepped from the secluded shelter of Parco Savello and into the now hustle and bustle of a Roman morning. "Where are we headed? You weren't exactly specific back there."

"You mean after we drop off our bags?"

At this obvious attempt at coyness, she laughed, "Yes, after that."

But when he only smiled that maddeningly knowing grin of his, Sara gave him a low muttered caution of "Gil -"

"Come on," he urged and without another word, let alone an explanation, tugged her towards a set of rather ancient looking gates. Despite being obviously securely fastened, these appeared to possess some sort of strange sense of fascination as a short queue had already begun to form in front of them.

Once at the head of the line, Grissom indicated for her to go first. And as Sara had observed those before her do, she bent to peer into the large brass keyhole.

Her eyes went as wide as her smile at the peek-a-boo view of the ornate Basilica di San Pietro perfectly centered inside.

Leaning in for his own look, Grissom said as nonchalant as ever, "Does that answer your question?"

* * *

Navigating the vast cobblestone sea that made up the Piazza di San Pietro, Grissom said, "This was once a paradise too, you know."

Momentarily puzzled by this Sara asked, "As in the _kingdom of heaven on earth_? As I seriously doubt early Christians would have thought so."

At the _go on _look he was giving her, she began to explain how the Emperor Nero, when facing rumors and accusations of being responsible for the First Century burning of Rome, which had over the course of six days and seven nights razed more than seventy percent of the city, decided to deflect the animosity away from himself and onto the favorite scapegoat of the time: a new rather small and obscure Jewish sect commonly known as Christians.

Once rounded up, these adherents were for the amusement of the citizens of Rome made the subjects and objects of violent and horrific sport. In the great arena of the Circus of Nero, upon the grounds of which much of St Peter's currently stands, the Christians became literal lambs to the slaughter, their bodies having been covered with the hides of sheep and other beasts before they were set upon by wild animals. Some were crucified. Others sprinkled with pitch and set alight to serve as living torches to illuminate the games.

"And before that as the swampland wasn't much use for anything else, it was the site of a Roman necropolis. So," Sara confessed, "I guess I'm not getting how it was ever paradise."

The unexpected thoroughness of her reply only surprised Grissom for an instant, soon recalling as he did, his wife once telling him she'd used to love the stories of the saints.

"You're about three hundred years too early," he offered. "The Old St. Peter's, the one Constantine I built, had an enclosed entrance or atrium surrounded on all sides by colonnades. It was known in the Middle Ages as a _parvis_ or..."

"A _paradise_," she finished knowingly. "So more architectural than spiritual then."

"In this case, yes."

* * *

Thankfully at this hour, it was too early for the typical football field length queues just to get into la Bascilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano. Grissom and Sara were both glad too that on the way over they'd dropped off their bags at their hotel so they didn't have to worry about checking them. Instead, they simply passed through the metal detectors and into the vast church.

They didn't get far.

Nearly as soon as they entered, they came upon the Chapel of the Pietà, where Michelangelo's life-sized sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ in her lap has safely resided behind a wall of glass ever since a delusional geologist took a rock hammer to the masterpiece in 1972.

It hadn't taken them long, during those afternoons just after they'd first arrived in Paris when Sara had insisted on dragging Grissom (who hadn't been _that _unwilling of a participant) through the miles of art at the Louvre, le Musée d'Orsay or le Musée de l'Orangerie des Tuileries, to discover that looking at a photograph of any piece of fine art whether it be painting or sculpture or textile was nothing like experiencing the real thing in the flesh. One could appreciate the photographic representation on a sort of intellectual level, but only in the actual presence of the art could you truly experience it.

Except it wasn't the dead Christ figure that riveted Sara to the spot. She'd seen death too often and too intimately to be transfixed by it any longer. No, it was the serene mien of the Virgin that gave her such pause.

In place of the supreme grief so many artists had chosen to depict, Michelangelo's Mary possessed a sweetness and peace that certainly passed Sara's understanding.

For she'd never seen that sort of tranquility and acceptance on the face of the mother of a murder victim. Not once.

But maybe that was faith for you.

Something Sara couldn't quite reconcile herself to. It was just too hard to make peace with the world she knew, the one she lived in, with any God she'd ever heard of. There was just too much hurt and suffering; too much evil.

And faith felt too much like a luxury she could never afford.

That her husband didn't feel the same didn't bother her in the slightest. She might not exactly understand the hows and whys of it, ever feel that way herself, but none of that in the least bit detracted from her admiring Grissom's ability to possess both faith and reason even after all he'd seen.

For him faith was simple, almost inexplicably so.

Once when she'd asked him about it, he'd explained his thoughts and feelings as he did with most things, by quotation, this time from Dante's _La Divina Commedia:_

Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,

and evidence of those that are not seen.

Young Michelangelo's Mary certainly seemed to possess a faith like that. A faith that held fast to the belief that the great sufferings of life - that all its pain - had a promised end. That death was not something to grieve.

But for Sara, if it had been someone she loved -

She hadn't been able to just accept Warrick as gone.

Neither had Grissom.

Even with all of his faith,there had been no majestic acceptance, no ethereal peace when Warrick Brown had died in his arms.

Not later either when in the sanctuary of his office, he'd grasped her hands so hard and told her, "I was holding him. God, I could feel his life. I guess I felt as if I could hold him tight enough, he'd be okay."

Nor when they'd come home from the funeral, Grissom wearing that lost, empty, vacant look that remained even months later.

And as hard as it had been losing Warrick, the idea of losing Grissom -

Sara didn't want to think about it. Even begin to think about it. Not now. Not after everything that had happened. Not after they'd finally managed to find their way back to each other.

She was nowhere nearer now to being ready to say goodbye to him than she had been that night after Brass had woken in the hospital. She wasn't sure she'd ever be.

But just the thought, as hastily discarded as it was, proved disquieting enough.

Oblivious to the steady stream of viewers ebbing and flowing around them, Sara leaned against the railing, closing her eyes in hopes of regaining some measure of composure.

She revived a little at the gentle pressure of his hand at the small of her back and turned.

That deadened look Grissom had worn for so long after Warrick's murder seemed such a far distant memory, his gaze as warm and alive and presently a little concerned as it was.

Reading his unspoken _You okay?_ Sara nodded, not quite able to smile.

And although Grissom knew better than to believe her, he didn't press.

* * *

Her melancholy didn't last long, however, soon subsumed as it was by amazement.

One didn't have to believe in God, Christian or otherwise, to feel the magnitude of St. Peter's, to be awestruck and overcome with wonder as one strolled up the nave, immense enough as it was that it could house more than 60,000 worshipers at one time.

It was pure Roman _grandiosità_. Almost too much to take in all at once.

With every inch of every corner, cornice, and crevice adorned in gilt, bronze, mosaic, marble or monumental stones cut and polished to shine like jewels in all their rainbow hues, the basilica was a true marriage of art and devotion; the sacred and the sublime.

And so staggeringly so that one felt as small as an ant under the great eye of heaven. And yet none the less for it.

No, it was not difficult to imagine here the magnitude and majesty of a higher power beyond oneself.

But while Sara gaped and stared and marveled, the camera at her side wholly forgotten, Grissom seemed to drink it all in with his usual ease and grace. With the comfort he seemed to perpetually carry with him these days. Of the sort which frequently baffled, but did not irritate his wife, ignorant as she was to the fact that she was the source and cause of it, the one who made the difference in him.

A murmur of worshipful Italian drifted from one of the many chapels. Easy as it was to forget in an age where churches were more houses of art than houses of God, that the pilgrims and the penitents frequently outnumbered the tourists, the sound came almost as a surprise. St. Peter's was however after all still a working church where every day _santa messa_ was intoned, confessions received, the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and marriage celebrated.

Throughout the church, the singular scent of sanctity pervaded, that unmistakably peculiar blend of light and time and dust, coupled with the almost sickly sweet smell of an incense the roots of which ingredients went all the way back to the frankincense the Magi presented to the Christ child.

In spite of the steadily building crowds, the basilica was quiet. What conversations there were conducted in hushed, close whispers; the vastness of the soaring ceilings swallowed up the sounds of scores of footfalls on the marble.

Grissom and Sara spoke little until they reached the center crossing at the heart of the basilica. There bathed in the almost heavenly light streaming from the dome overhead, Bernini's great bronze baldacchino rose to tower over the _altare papale_ and the grave of St. Peter far below.

Gesturing to the immense ornate pillars bearing up the ceremonial canopy, Grissom leaned in to say, "Tell me what you see."

And with a smile, he watched her eyes follow the way each column spiraled from an acanthus base into the intricately intertwining sprigs of bay and olive leaves.

Noticing the cherubic putti weren't the only ones abuzz in the foliage, Sara had a hard time containing her amusement. "I should have known," she sighed.

She should have known better than to regard Grissom's promise to take her bug hunting in Rome literally.

"_Apis mellifera_," she murmured, for the grand canopy virtually swarmed with bees.

"We could look for actual bugs if you'd like," Grissom rejoined, happy to see her brighten and smile again.

"These are just fine," Sara maintained. "Symbolic, I assume."

Grissom nodded. "Doubly so. They're Barbarini bees."

"Barbarini bees?"

"See the cluster of three bees at the top of the columns and along the canopy beside the papal shields? It's the heraldic crest of the family of Pope Urban VIII. Long story," he hastily summed up, and indicating that their surroundings weren't exactly the time or place said, "Tell you later."

She chuckled, "Why do I get the feeling this isn't the last of the bees then?"

He only smiled.

To which Sara shrugged. "At least this way I guess I don't have to worry about being stung."

* * *

Exiting into the portico of the church, Sara said, "You planned all of this."

It wasn't a question. Nor was her equally knowing, "So this is what you were up half the night doing with my phone."

For at some point earlier that morning, she'd woken to find herself curled up along the seats of their compartment, her head in Grissom's lap; his jacket draped over her like a blanket and her husband sitting up wide awake, glasses perched on the tip of his nose, and apparently by the way his face was bathed in the unearthly blue illumination, having succumbed to the lure of her iPhone.

When he would neither confirm nor deny this, she laughed, "Well, at least I know what to get you for your birthday."

Then recalling their old school versus new school debate on the train, Sara added slightly smug, "Told you it comes in handy."

* * *

"One last thing," Grissom said, steering Sara down the length of the atrium rather than down into the Piazza.

"Think Zeppelin," he proffered when she shot him one of those disbelieving _And now what?_ looks.

Which didn't leave her any less perplexed. "As in Hindenburg?"

"As in Led."

Still baffled as to what on earth he could be referring to, Sara merely waited for what she knew would be his eventual elucidation.

"'Stairway to Heaven,'" he supplied.

What _the_ rock anthem of the 1970's had to do with anything in the Vatican, Sara had no clue until she found herself staring at a warning sign posted just outside what appeared to be a ticket office of all things.

In _italiano_, English, _français, Deutsch_ and _español_ it stated:

To reach the cupola one must climb 320 steps after taking the elevator; the elderly, those with ailments or heart problems should be aware.

That it all now made sense, like Grissom's oft strange allusions were ultimately wont to do, didn't keep her from saying, "It might have been just a little before my time, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't what the band had in mind, Gil."

His answering glare said _Humor me_. Which she did, as usual.

Pointing to the much shorter line for the stairs, he asked, "You game?"

And recognizing the challenge, Sara returned it. "I am if you are," she rejoined. Then gesturing for him to precede her teased, "Age before beauty."

He shook his head insisting, "Ladies first."

"Chivalry not dead in Rome?"

"Not dead with me," he countered, which she had to admit was true.

They paid their six euros a piece and joined the queue. Ascending the first two hundred or so stairs up to the _tamburo_ or drum at the base of Michelangelo's dome proved easy enough (of course those hadn't been the stairs the caution referred to) and were well worth the climb, affording as it did, a rousing dove's eye view of the interior of the great basilica and a closer look at the mosaics that adorned the interior of the vault.

It certainly altered and expanded one's sense of proportion. Appearing huge even at ground level, the circumnavigating letters about the base proclaiming:

_Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam mean et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum -_

took on almost epic proportions when seen up close at their full two meter stature. And the tourists below really did look like scampering ants from this height.

Having each been lulled into a false sense of security after their initial climb and with Grissom still goaded on by the unspoken and yet no less implied _old man_ at the end of his wife's_ I am if you are_, Sara certainly not about to complain if her husband wasn't and them both immune to the siren call of restrooms, water fountains, coffee bars or souvenir shops, they chose to continue up to the _laterna _at the apex of the dome rather than descend to the roof.

Rather rapidly they discovered that the sign hadn't been kidding.

If anything, it forgot to mention the tight narrow squeezes, the seemingly interminable winding along oddly spaced and shaped stairs, how in places there was only rope to hold onto for balance and with the continuous reverb of the footsteps behind, that there was no space to pause to catch one's breath either. It was certainly a climb in any case.

And with the only way to go as up, not for the faint of heart or indecisive. Good thing neither of them were prone to fits of claustrophobia. But both were privately ruing their bravado.

"Steep and narrow is the road to heaven?" Sara quipped somewhere around step 275.

Causing Grissom to quote, "'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life,'" in reply.

In this case, straight would have been an improvement.

"But purely practical, I'm sure," he continued.

"Maybe you should have gone first," Sara suggested a little breathless. "I'm not exactly Beatrice you know."

Grissom's lips twitched slightly at the mention of the woman who led Dante from out of _purgatorio _and into _paradiso_. Readily recalling how the real Dante Alighieri only ever loved the real Beatrice di Folco Portinari in that secret, heightened, distant and chaste way so common to the ideals of courtly love, he said, "I'd rather have you."

He had already loved Sara from afar for far too long. From even before he recognized that love was what it was, what all the strange thoughts and feelings and wantings meant. He certainly wasn't all that keen on the idea of loving her that way now.

If there hadn't been the persistent rumble of steps at their backs, the honesty in his assertion would have stopped Sara in her tracks.

As it was, there wasn't much breath for climbing, let alone words, by the time they reached the top.

Just as the Eiffel Tower was the highest point in the Parisian skyline, the cupola at the top of St. Peter's dome was to the Roman sky. The sweeping views from_ caput mundi_, the head of the world, was accordingly breathtaking. And the breeze which had begun to blow the clouds in from the North refreshing after their confinement.

Joining their fellow climbers at the railing, Grissom turned to Sara and said, "This is why I wanted to bring you here."

"For the view?" she queried in return.

He shrugged, "It's always good to take in different points of view."

"True."

It certainly was that.

Then Grissom asked, "Do you know why Michelangelo designed the dome this high?"

Sara had to admit she didn't.

"The official answer is _Ad majorem Dei et Ecclesiae glorium,_ 'To the greater glory of God and the Church.' Which was why he consented to work on the project as old as he was at the time.

"But even though Michelangelo never lived to see it finished, he wanted the dome to allow man to be that much nearer to God, believing as he did that his work could allow him to touch God. And that it was man's right to try."

One could certainly envision it from this height. In how the distance muffled the cacophony of the world below into the rumble of a whisper and how just out of reach, phalanxes of sparrows and starlings dove and swept across the sky in almost regimental unison.

From here the Roman belief that _Non c'é una città più bella di Roma_, there is no city more beautiful than Rome, didn't sound the least like jingoistic pride, but truth.

"So," Grissom asked, once more leaning nearer to her, "do you recognize anything?"

Sara scoffed, "Isn't it still a little early in the day for a quiz, _il maestro_?"

He simply waited. So she rattled off the ones she knew.

When this didn't seem to impress Grissom, Sara challenged, "What, you can do better?"

He gave her one of those slight smiles of his, of the sort she knew presaged mischief.

"Close your eyes," he said and when she balked at this request, insisted, "Just do it."

Knowing better than to fight him on this, she did.

And in his whispered descriptions not only could she see the places as they stood today, but the way they'd been. See past the terrace just beneath them lined as it was with the 140 statues of Jesus, the apostles, saints, martyrs and angels to the square with its wide welcoming arms ready to embrace the faithful. See the giant stone obelisk that stood witness in the center, as it had stood witness over the crucifixion of Peter nearly two millennia before.

See just beyond the yellow beige walls of Vatican City, ten angels, each bearing a symbol of the Passion, heralding the way along Ponte Sant'angelo to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, renamed Castel Sant'angelo, after the Archangel Michael appeared atop it, sheathing his sword as a sign that the plague of 590 was over, and where fifteen centuries later, Puccini would set the last act of his operatic _tour de force_ _Tosca. _

See in the distance the Monument Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, the_ Altare della Patria_, or more commonly il Vittoriano, looming large and glaring white, _la grande tarte_ or _la macchina da scrivere_ the Romans frequently and not always affectionately referred to it as.

And peeling back the layers of history, she could see how the seven great hills of Rome which where once home to shepherds, then villages of wattle and daub huts that only much later gave way to brick and mortar. How Rome's first emperor Augustus made good on his boast that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. How from trade and taxes Rome grew to munificence, became _la civiltà_ and the center of the western world. _Il Colosseo_ wasn't in ruins. The Forum, the center of civic and social life. A Rome rebuilt by Nero, the city a phoenix rising from the flames.

Though Rome wasn't always grand. Having seen the rise and fall of its empire and emperors and the more than half-century absence of the Pope during the Avignon papacies, Medieval Roma was then little more than squalid ruins. Even Constantine's St. Peter's crumbled from disuse.

Until the 15th Century when in hopes of creating _una_ _città di Dio_, a city of God, one fit to be the capital of the Christian World, Rome was reborn at the hands of Michelangelo, Bernini, Boromini and those of their lavish papal benefactors, so that once more, _tutte le strade portano a Roma,_ all roads lead to Rome.

Grissom's voice trailed off and his narration done, Sara opened her eyes. She grinned unable to conceal her amazement.

"You sure you've never been to Rome before?"


	13. Thirteen: It Never Rains but It Pours

**Thirteen: It Never Rains but It Pours**

"I'm gonna love you, like nobody's loved you

Come rain or come shine

High as a mountain, deep as a river

Come rain or come shine..."

"Come Rain or Come Shine," Johnny Mercer

* * *

Best as it was to begin at the beginning or at least close to it and with Grissom as ever a man of his word, he and Sara were backtracking across the city en route to il Colosseo and il Foro Romano when the clouds which had begun to blow in mid-morning darkened and in a matter of moments, their fine spitting mist had metamorphosed into the thick, fat droplets of a spring deluge.

All of which caused Sara to shake her head. The way nothing on this vacation had gone according to plan, perhaps the fact that the sky had instantly opened up and was currently pouring sheets of rain was, she mused, just to be expected.

There was just one rather not so insignificant problem.

Earlier when they'd dropped off their things at the hotel, there hadn't even been a hint of rain, not one. So needless to say, neither had an umbrella on them and with the day having started off so fine and all the walking making it warm enough for shirt sleeves, not a jacket either.

So much for _semper paratis. _

Then with it being just after noon, the customary hours for _il riposo_, the Italian equivalent of the Spanish _siesta_, of course most businesses were_chiuso_. And it wasn't as if they could just stroll into _un museo_ or_ una chiesa_ dripping wet as they were.

Plus, as apparently eaves and overhangs did not regularly feature in Roman architecture, shelter of any sort was unfortunately in short supply. So much so that they both considered themselves_ fortunati_ to be able to stumble beneath a narrow awning advertising _una frutta e verdura_.

In search of a more long-term solution to their precipitation problem, Grissom pulled out the phone and began to scroll through the map.

He must have readily found whatever he was looking for, as he'd quickly replaced it in his pocket and with his usual taciturnity, took Sara's hand, tugging her down a series of _strade_ that to her ignorant eyes looked pretty much like any of the others they'd journeyed down that day.

"We're just about there," he assured her.

Wherever there was.

For the narrow, almost warren-like nature of Rome's ancient streets frequently meant that any destination wasn't in view until you were literally right on top of it. La Chiesa di Santa Maria ad Martyrs in the Piazza della Rotonda was certainly a case in point.

That and Rome's oldest, most intact monument wasn't exactly your typical church. Looking more as it did like a Greek temple with its prominent pediment and sculpted frieze boldly proclaiming _M. Agrippa L. f. cos. tertium. fecit. _capping a towering portico of Corinthian columns, the sight of what was more commonly known as the Pantheon caught them up short.

Not that the façade was wholly unfamiliar to them, their walks through their Quartier Latin neighborhood having frequently taken them past Paris's 18th Century neoclassical reinterpretation.

Still, it wasn't everyday you stood in front of a two thousand year old building.

But as it so often does, practicality soon overcame wonder.

Fortunately the Pantheon was also one of the few major tourist destinations in Rome without either admission or queue to get in.

Beyond grateful to be out of the rain, they dashed through the forest of red grey marble, albeit slowing to enter via the massive bronze doors at a more sedate and respectful speed.

The gaping they'd done outside however had nothing on the wide-mouthed, wide-eyed sort once they'd stepped inside. For they weren't much out of the flow of traffic before their eyes were drawn up the arc and expanse of the Pantheon's lofty dome.

For nearly two millennia, this vast wonder and mystery of Roman engineering had no rival.

As tall as it was wide, its dimensions gave a sense of space as vast as time.

Its almost unearthly weightlessness had once caused a very hard to impress Michelangelo to proclaim it was of "angelic and not human design." That he adopted a similar plan for St. Peter's was indeed a moment of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.

Originally commissioned by Marcus Agrippa to commemorate his victory at Actium over Antony and Cleopatra, it was a temple dedicated to _pan theos_ - all the gods, its heptad of _rientranze_ or niches home to marbles of the seven planetary deities. It was, too, the first _templum_ in Rome to be open to the people and not just priests or vestals. Here animals were sacrificed and burned beneath the center of the dome, the smoke and attendant prayers rising to the gods through the nearly ten meter round oculus fourteen stories above.

Completely open to the sky as this eye of heaven was, on sunny days it cast a pillar of light, a reverse sort of sundial, along the rotunda; today, a pillar of rain.

However unexpected and awe provoking a spectacle it proved to be, that didn't keep Sara from quipping, amused as she was at the irony, "Of all the buildings in Rome, you pick the one where it rains inside."

Either missing the tease, intentionally ignoring it or a bit of both, as frequently could be the case with Grissom, he intoned, "Snows, too, upon occasion."

"Now that," she rejoined, trying to imagine it, "I'd like to see."

In any case, at least it didn't matter if you dripped on the floor, sloped as it was, or so Grissom proceeded to explain, to provide drainage.

That her husband knew this didn't surprise Sara in the slightest. She'd long ago accepted the reality that he was just one of those _cognoscenti_, people who were well informed, in his case, on just about everything.

Still she sighed, "All I know is that Raphael is buried here."

"'_Ille hic est Raphael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori_,'" Grissom quoted. "Loosely, 'Here lies the famous Raphael. While he lived, mother nature feared to be surpassed; now dead she fears she herself will die.'

"'Or as Alexander Pope once quoted a friend of Swift's saying, 'Here Raphael lies by whose untimely end/Nature both lost a rival and a friend.'"

Sara rolled her eyes and mumbled "Show off," under her breath before saying in a more distinct voice, "I don't remember that bit in Dan Brown. I read _Angels and Demons_ after _The_ _Da Vinci Code _came out," she explained. "It was really popular at the time and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

Then a little guiltily at the peculiar look her husband was giving her, she shrugged and added, "It wasn't _really _a crime book, Gil."

While he made no actual reply, his unconvinced expression spoke volumes.

Though discretion being as it was the better part of valor, both decided it better to turn their attentions to their surroundings and fellow visitors. They certainly weren't the only ones sheltering here from the rain. Although most of the others seemed to have avoided getting soaked. How exactly puzzled them both as neither could remember seeing a single umbrella before the downpour had begun.

Amongst the real enthusiasts, assorted guidebooks or MP3 players in hand or ear in the case of the latter, were the few typical bored, aimless wanderers, a rather large and noisy group of precocious young people whose comments while not in English were in a tone suggesting they were more into making crass jokes than appreciating antiquity, as well as the usual formal tour groups with their _cicerone_ telling their tales in some languages Grissom and Sara recognized and a few they didn't.

Although with the peculiar acoustic properties of domed chambers being what they were, one didn't necessarily need to be close in order to take in others' conversations. That concrete reflected rather than absorbed sound further amplified the effect, so that depending on where you stood, you could hear even whispers plain as day.

Neither exactly immune to the lure of albeit unintentional eavesdropping, Grissom and Sara found themselves not infrequently pausing in their circumnavigating of the room to listen in and occasionally comment in murmurs of their own.

"… Original burnt down several times and was struck by lightening. Despite the inscription to Agrippa outside, the current building was actually rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian..."

"... The Romans invented concrete, essentially building the Pantheon out of a simple mixture of lime, pozzolana ash and rock."

"But not so simple a chemical interaction," Grissom leaned in to say. "Turns out the volcanic ash was the key. Modern concrete with its origins in 19th Century cook top chemistry is made from a previously heated powder of sand, clay and lime, which is then added to water. But because the ash had already been heat-activated from the volcanic eruptions, the ancient Romans didn't have to worry about adding heat or water to create a super strong cement that would literally last for millennia."

"Until acid rain," Sara chimed in.

"Until then, yes," Grissom readily conceded.

From somewhere a guide was saying in Italian, "_Il Pantheon è l'edificio più antico di Roma in uso continuo..._"

Causing Grissom to confide in whispered English, "Once even a fortress and a poultry market."

Sara scoffed. "How could you possibly know that? You don't even like chickens."

"Don't remind me."

When quietly passing the chapel dedicated to King Victor Emmanuel II, they heard, "_Selon les historiens contemporains des oreilles de Vénus ont été décorées avec des perles de Cléopâtre._"

"Wearing Cleopatra's pearls or not, that Venus must have been something to see," said Sara. "The Greeks and Romans weren't exactly into staid marble. You didn't hear about the exhibit at the Vatican?" she asked at the perplexed yet intrigued look her husband was giving her. "It was called something like the _colori del… bianco_ - _The Color of White_.

"They used X-ray fluorescence, UV and infrared photography, spectroscopic analysis and SEM to examine some of the most famous classical figures then recreated the pigments from the results. Turns out the art was originally more peacock than prim."

"Perhaps someone should notify Caesar's."

Sara gave this idea a very vigorous shake of the head. "Vegas is gaudy enough as it is."

"So the white marbles of the renaissance and neoclassical periods were anything but traditional," Grissom said, more statement than question. Though he did wonder one thing. "Art history class?" he asked.

"Hodges actually," she replied, then in faux seriousness, "Yet another wonder of Trace Analysis."

Grissom's resultant "Why am I not surprised?" proved more fond than anything.

They lingered long enough in front of the main alter to listen to a tour guide lecture a motley group of backpackers, seniors and sightseers on the history of the Pantheon as a Catholic Church.

"... Was the first pagan temple in Rome to be Christianized," he began. "In the same way that many pagan customs and holidays were reappropriated by the Church, so were the old houses of worship. The Pantheon went from being a temple to all the gods to a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. Its consecration in 609 saving it from abandonment, destruction and the worst of exploitation and scavenging."

"Relatively speaking," Grissom leaned in to clarify as they continued on their way. "Didn't keep Emperor Constans II from removing the gilt in the ceiling. Or Pope Urban VIII from removing the bronze roof tiles. Remember Bernini's baldacchino in St. Peter's with all the bees?" Sara nodded. "Enough of it came from the portico decorations that the Romans of the day reportedly grumbled, '_Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini_,' 'What the barbarians didn't do, the Barberini did.'"

"What no bees here then?" Sara asked.

"Not for want of trying," Grissom rejoined. "Urban wanted to redecorate the inside as well as the outside. Not a good idea. When Urban had two bell towers installed on the pronaos, the Romans nicknamed them 'asses ears.' Thankfully they were removed in the 19th Century."

Sara chuckled, "The Romans do have a way with nicknames."

But Grissom had gotten that far off distant look, the one his wife knew meant he was trying to put his finger on something, but just wasn't quite able to. She certainly knew better than to interrupt him in any case.

Then as if whatever it was had suddenly hit him he said, "Actually there are bees."

And without another word, he hurriedly slipped out through the great bronze doors leaving a puzzled Sara trailing not for the first time in his wake.

Catching up with him she said, "Gil, you've really got to stop doing that."

Sara needn't have bothered, deaf as he was to all remonstrances, too intent on peering upwards as he negotiated his way through the portico's forest of columns.

Coming to an abrupt halt, he said, "Let me see your camera."

After a moment, Grissom gestured to the pediment directly above their heads and handing the camera back to her said, "Take a look."

Peering through the lens, Sara found atop the column that same three-bee crest that had adorned the baldachin at St. Peters.

"It appears that when one of the columns had to be replaced, Urban couldn't resist making sure everyone knew he was the one who'd done it," Grissom explained with a grin which Sara, despite her husband's occasionally maddening tendencies, couldn't help but share.

"So what's the story?" she asked.

"Story?"

"Yeah, with all the bees. There has to be a story."

"Why is that?" he asked in turn.

"For one," she replied patiently, "with you there's always a story. And two, you said so."

As he couldn't quite deny either of these, he was about to launch in on the whole sordid history of _la famiglia Barbarini_ when he noticed Sara shivering, and far more concerned with the fact that it had taken him until now to notice, he promised, "Later."

Cool and damp as the Pantheon was to begin with and them having arrived as thoroughly soaked as they both were, it was a wonder either had lasted this long. He at least had the added layer of an undershirt.

So when his attempts to rub a little warmth into her arms didn't seem to have any effect, Grissom insisted, "We need to get you out of these wet clothes."

And Sara's eyebrows went up at this accordingly.

"You coming back sick won't make Catherine happy," Grissom maintained.

"I'm _not_ going to get sick," Sara assured him. "Getting caught in the rain won't make you sick. You and I both know that."

Grissom didn't seem convinced nor willing to risk it.

Not that the prospect of spending the rest of the day sightseeing in wet clothing was all that appealing to begin with, and with Grissom's quick map check informing them they were less than a mile away, Sara readily agreed that a stop back at their hotel to change was in order, even if it was still raining.

Besides, what was the worst that could happen? They'd get more wet?

So they decided to make another break for it.

In their mad dash they plunged through several deep puddles, splashing dirty water over their cuffs and the tops of their shoes. While wet clothes weren't exactly fun, wet socks were positively revolting.

What neither of them had taken into account was that wet cobblestones had a far lower friction coefficient than the more modern pavement back home. They each nearly slipped on the slick_ ciottoli_ several times before the two of them finally tumbled all knees and elbows into a heap.

As _autisti italiani_ were even more insane than their French counterparts, slumped in the middle of the street wasn't exactly the safest place to dawdle. Once the initial shock wore off, they quickly clambered to their feet.

In order to catch their breath and make sure they were both still in one piece, they sought shelter in a recessed doorway providentially nearby.

While one hand gently eased a dank strand from Sara's face, Grissom's other tightened protectively at her waist and there was more than just concern over their tumble in his solicitous start of, "You..."

Truth was ever since that night out in the desert, the rain still occasionally made them both a little uneasy.

But when Sara cut in with "Just wet," she meant it. Then with a smirk and a shake of the head she added sagely, "'When it rains it pours.'"

And good as it always was to see and hear her laugh, all of Grissom's worry melted in the way her eyes and face lit up with a sudden peal of laughter.

She had to laugh. It was just so absurd. All of it.

But Grissom didn't join in.

His heart still racing and huddled close as they were, he could feel her breath and body hot against him.

Overcome, he kissed her.


	14. Fourteen: Caesura

**Fourteen: Caesura **

"When I am with you, we stay up all night.

When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for those two insomnias!

And the difference between them."

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Dong.

Dong.

Dong.

Sara started slightly at the distant, drawn out throaty peal of the bells of Santa Maria a Trastevere striking three.

Although never having meant to doze off, apparently she had. She blinked, still drowsy and a little dazed at the unfamiliar sound, glad however that the tumult hadn't roused her husband. But then after all his months in Paris, Grissom had far more practice sleeping through the tolling. Church bells weren't exactly a Vegas sort of sound.

Despite all of his earlier pretense and protests of reluctance about not needing _un pomeriggio pisolino,_ an afternoon nap, he was even now sound asleep and softly snoring, the reassuring weight of him curled up and nestled against her as he'd been nearly an hour before.

Careful not to wake him, she eased the blanket a little tighter about Grissom before leaning to breathe in that ever-reassuring scent of him and place a kiss into his still damp hair.

_That rain_ - she thought with a mental sigh and shake of the head, even now not quite able to believe it.

Turned out that sudden spring rain showers were _normali _in Rome_._ Or at least that was what the ever helpful and _amichevole_ front desk clerk at their hotel proceeded to inform them when they'd shown up sopping wet and dripping and technically several hours too early for check-in.

While neither Grissom nor Sara had progressed enough in their Italian to be able to begin to adequately discuss the perils of the weather, no explanation had been necessary. Their appearance spoke volumes in any language. The _albergatrice _had simply shaken her head and proceeded to withdraw a key and their luggage before leading them to their room. That and she'd handed them a spare umbrella just in case. Of course by then, it had stopped raining. The gesture had been appreciated all the same.

They shucked their soaked shoes the minute they made it through the door. Sara disappeared into the bathroom for towels while Grissom unearthed dry clothes from their bags.

Quickly, they stripped down. Sara gave his hair an affectionate toweling off before taking care of her own. She was in the process of slipping a fresh top over her head when she noticed her husband's eyes upon her. The usual warm appreciation she was yet ever surprised to find there was tempered this time with tiredness.

If truth be told, Grissom looked, slumped as he was on the edge of the bed clad only in his boxers and undershirt, utterly wiped out.

With La Sorbonne not exactly requiring all that many all-nighters - from their _professeurs _at least - even with his inevitable periodic bouts of insomnia while Sara was away, these days Grissom had been getting a fair share of sleep on a fairly consistent basis. He certainly slept far more and far better than he ever had working in Vegas, as there he'd frequently been lucky to get four or five hours a night, well technically a day. But having been away for nearly the last year and a half, he was more used to the regular hours and regular rest of a far more diurnal lifestyle. Which meant that the not even three hours of shut eye stolen very early that morning sitting up on the train did not a decent night's sleep make.

That coupled with their early morning hike up and down several of _i sette colli di Roma_, those five hundred plus steps each way at the Vatican and their multiple mad dashes in the rain had exhausted the last of his energy.

Even the caffeine buzz from the rich cups of espresso (cappuccino not as a rule drunk in Rome after 10 a.m.) which they'd indulged in at the café on the roof of St. Peter's had long ago expired.

"How about a nap?" suggested Sara gently.

At the frankly disbelieving glare she gave him at his dogged "I'm fine," Grissom quickly amended, "Just need a little coffee."

"No more coffee."

No matter if the copious consumption of those tiny cups explained the habitual Italian alertness and general _gioia de vivre_, they'd already had plenty enough for the day and with his blood pressure, Grissom especially.

"Besides," she added, "You're not any fun or good to me dead on your feet."

Grissom didn't deign to reply to this, thinking the dirty look he was shooting his wife answer enough.

Sara only grinned. "They're good for you, you know, naps."

Causing him to counter, "Hypocrisy doesn't suit you, dear."

As she couldn't refute this, Sara decided to attempt another tack. "Anyway, isn't the afternoon nap a Roman tradition? Probably a byproduct of all those large lunches and severe caffeine withdrawal."

"Neither actually," Grissom corrected. "Ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"Ghosts were thought to walk during _hora sexta_," he explained, "the sixth hour, between two and four p.m. modern time."

"So people stayed in and didn't go out?"

"Right."

While part of her was really tempted to call bullshit on this one, knowing as she did the unlikelihood of it actually being the case, Sara decided it better to intone, "Well you know what they say: _When in Rome..._"

"'_Cum Romano Romanus eris_,' 'When in Rome do as the Romans do,'" Grissom finished. "Pope Clement XIV. Although the sentiment has its root in Augustine's Letters: '_Cum fueris Romae, Romano vivito more, cum fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi_,' 'When you're in Rome, live in the Roman fashion, when elsewhere, live there as they live.' Good words to live by."

While she certainly agreed with the sentiment, Sara chose instead to say, a fond smirk belying the vexation inherent in her words, "I've never been quite able to figure it out. Do you just like showing off or are you naturally an insufferable know-it-all?"

But before an understandably affronted Grissom could answer, she leaned in, kissed him lingeringly on the cheek the way she'd done up in il Giardino degli Aranci and murmured in a softer, far more wheedling tone, "Come to bed, Gil."

Grissom, never being the sort of man who needed to be told twice, allowed his wife to tug him beneath the sheets with her.

As he was honestly mind and body too tired to be interested in anything more and they both knew it, her whispered yet insistent qualification of "Just sleep, and only sleep," was more playful than anything.

Besides, Grissom was more than content to be cuddled up against her, his head resting on her chest, relishing as he did so in the feel of her fingers bleeding warmth through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. Or at least he seemed so, if the way his sighs and soft moans had soon deepened into snores were any indication.

Nearly an hour later, they still lay like that - him fast asleep, Sara just awake and content herself to lie there and listen to his deep even breathing for a while, still smiling at his snoring and wondering how she'd ever managed to sleep through it.

After much of a lifetime spent sleeping alone, she'd been genuinely surprised when she and Grissom had first gotten together to find she rather liked falling asleep with someone in the bed beside her, then waking up that way, too.

Well, if the person was Grissom. Snoring and cover stealing notwithstanding. Although when it came to the covers, Sara had long secretly believed that he tended to thieve them unconsciously on purpose so as to insure her needing to snuggle closer to him to keep warm.

It wasn't as if there hadn't been other men, other boyfriends. The occasional youthful fling and fairly frequent lapses in judgment like the one with Hank that went on way too long. But not _that_ many really. But more than a couple too many, considering most of them had proven to be lying, cheating bastards in the end. Needless to say, her track record hadn't exactly been stellar.

So there'd been sex, but sex was just sex, or at least could be. Sleeping with someone was far different. For her, the trust it required made it in some ways even more intimate an act than sex and certainly not one shared lightly.

That and bad dreams and chronic insomnia didn't exactly make for the best bedfellows. So there hadn't been a helluva lot of that much actual sleeping together going on.

With Grissom it had been different. The first time she'd woken up with him hadn't felt like the first time, and yet even now after all the years, the sensation hadn't ceased to surprise her.

Not that they'd had all that much opportunity in the beginning. Work being work, even simply sleeping hadn't been all that frequent of an occurrence. But they learned to make the time. Learned too despite all their natural awkwardness, how to negotiate what_ being together_ meant. How to convey hopes and wants and fears. They were still doing that, figuring it all out. Would likely spend the rest of their lives doing just that.

While the insomnia and nightmares might not have just magically vanished simply because they were together - the subconscious didn't work like that, intimately tied as it was to both memory and fear - Grissom seemed to think it was well worth the risk having her in the bed beside him, so Sara eventually stopped dreading the prospect of waking him. And to her surprise, she'd soon discovered that when she woke up in a cold sweat beneath the blankets, her ears still ringing with the screaming as they so often did, she didn't need him to tell her it was okay, it was going to be okay.

She could feel it.

Even the simple way his hand would curve gentle and warm, protective at her hip proved a greater comfort than she could have imagined all those years ago when hurt and heartbroken as she'd been, she'd asked Grissom if he wanted to sleep with her.

It was a strange, unexpected peace.

For it was one of the few times and places in her life she felt safe. And comfortable with him in ways she hadn't been with anyone else. Not even herself. All of which made it easier to surrender to sleep, to let go of that control.

And these days harder to sleep alone.

In the same way the house was sometimes just too quiet, she found her bed empty without Grissom to share it. For the first few nights whenever she returned to Vegas, she tended to toss and turn and far too often would despite the fact that they hadn't slept together in that particular bed for months, wake with the disquieting surety that he was there in the bed beside her.

That particular afternoon in Rome, with him so warm and alive against her, Sara thought she could really get used to this again, to slipping off to sleep only to wake up with him again. It would certainly be nice to try.

That she wasn't the only one to think so really had come as a surprise.

Before they'd become friends and lovers, all of her earlier observations indicated that Gil Grissom tended to be uncomfortable with, even actively shun, touching and being touched. So that when their verbal affection eventually gave way to more of the physical variety, the fact that he craved, enjoyed and was pleased by that sort of contact had genuinely confounded her. Inexplicable as it was, Grissom liked being held, was even partial to cuddling, particularly these days when they spent so much time apart.

Not that Sara was complaining. She just never would have thought it.

But then her husband always was full of surprises. Had been since the moment they'd met. Was even now when she should have become inured to it. Still, he succeeded in baffling and bewildering, shocking and awing her on a fairly regular basis.

Like that kiss.

_Surprise _didn't even begin to describe it.

Furtive, impromptu, public and passionate in that tender way of his, she'd been temporarily stunned into stillness. It hadn't exactly been the_ bacetto_ she'd given him earlier. But before long, she'd yielded to the moment and returned all of his kiss.

Not that they hadn't seen plenty of _amore_ on display that morning. There was just as much _romanticismo _in the spring air _a Roma_ as there was _romantisme_ _à Paris_. The Italians were equally as _appassionati_ as the French were _passionés,_ if not more so. In any case, it was quite readily apparent that both cities were made for love and lovers. Kissing and other various public displays of affection, certainly custom of the country.

Sara would have considered chalking up the whole incident to being another one of those _When in Rome_ moments, if Grissom hadn't been growing generally more affectionate in public ever since he'd shown up in Costa Rica a year and a half before.

Nor had there been anything customary in how once his lips finally withdrew from hers, he'd confessed in a quiet, yet no less nakedly honest murmur, "I've been wanting to do that all morning."

Like so much of the ordinary extraordinariness of their life together, Sara held fast to that memory, treasuring it in her heart accordingly.

She was thinking back to that moment, smiling over it and her still slumbering husband, when as it so often did, his deep measured breathing shifted into the resonating, almost thundering rumble of a snore. Sara had a hard time containing her grin and an even harder one restraining herself from laughing.

How she had - or ever - slept through _that,_ she'd no clue.

The sound was strangely endearing. Or perhaps that was just all the time spent away talking.

Of course his denials were even more so, earnest as he ever was in insisting that she had yet to actually prove he did indeed snore.

He'd just let out an even louder, if that were possible, snore when Sara recalled that her new phone came with a built-in voice recorder. While attempting to prove one's spouse wrong was likely not the use the designers had envisioned for it, the temptation to do just that quickly became too much for her to resist. Particularly as Grissom had left the phone on the table next to her side of the bed.

Even slightly pinned beneath him as she was, she should be able to reach it without disturbing him. She inched her fingers towards it. She just about had it -

When his stentorian snore seemed to stop mid breath.

And her husband awkwardly propped himself up on an elbow to peer bemused and bleary-eyed at her.

Not sure if she'd been caught or not, Sara decided as she'd rolled onto her side to face him to feign ignorance if not innocence. However that didn't keep that twinge of guilt completely out of her bright, "Hey, sleepy head."

From his almost incoherently mumbled _Hi_ in reply and the way it was taking his eyes a while to focus on her face, she needn't have worried. Evidently, he'd been still too sleepy to notice anything amiss.

Happy and pleased though he was to find that his last waking thought before the steady iambs of her heartbeat had lulled him into sleep had proven true, that Rome and more importantly Sara was still there when he woke, in truth, he hadn't quite emerged from that not quite dreaming, not quite awake state.

Still, it was a reality Grissom knew better than to take for granted. Her here with him.

Almost instinctively, his palm found its way to curve about her hip. For at the feel of her gently smoothing his hair, her touch as soothing as it ever was, his eyes fluttered briefly shut again. Only once her fingers settled at the back of his neck did they reopen, revealing a blue as placid as a still deep pool.

Grissom knew the science behind the sensation. How touch had a calming effect, slowing the heart rate and decreasing blood pressure while simultaneously increasing the levels of melatonin and serotonin in the system. But curled up with Sara beneath the blankets in this here and now, he found the science didn't really matter much. Touch spoke louder than rationale or reason; conveyed so much more than words. In that way, the quiet tenderness that flowed between them often proved more profound and lasting than any fleeting flash of passion.

But there was amusement more than desire to be presently found in his wife's gaze and subsequent query of "What were you saying about not being tired? Your snoring would certainly indicate otherwise. 'Sawing logs' I believe is the expression," she laughed.

"Right," he intoned evenly.

"Admit it, Gil," she persisted. "You snore."

"You've yet to prove it."

Even if part of her was practically clamoring to tell him she'd been just about to do just that before his having woken up had put an abrupt kibosh on her attempt, the rest of her realized that having proof would only ultimately take all the fun out of the teasing. And she enjoyed it all too much to want that.

Besides, as she wasn't typically the first one asleep at night and the last one up in the morning, and yet had been for much of this trip, it hadn't escaped her notice that her husband was having more trouble sleeping than usual.

Something that concerned her.

Again attempting to flatten his damp hair, which however short as it was, continued to persist in standing up at rakish angles, she said softly, "You sleep at all last night?"

Venturing to give her a reassuring smile, Grissom replied neither truthfully nor not, "A little."

"When?" Sara persisted.

"Somewhere after Milan I think."

With a shake of her head, she sighed, "No wonder you were tired."

Then however sure there was more to it than only that, she said, "Internet insomnia?"

But instead of replying, his hand moved from her hip to her cheek and as he'd done out in the rain, Grissom brushed back her hair and kissed her, soft and gentle this time. And she let him, even knowing as she did, that there was something he wasn't telling. Not yet at least.

Truth be told, Internet insomnia had been the least of it.

It hadn't been about finding places to go or things to do, the reason he'd been wide-awake scrolling through the guidebook on her phone long past three the night before.

He had been having problems sleeping on this trip. Ones that were more than those to be expected from the natural excitement of the journey and days about to come. Nor had all their various misadventures been keeping him up either.

However irrational as he knew the reason to be, he just didn't want to waste what comparably little time he had with Sara sleeping.

But then when was the heart ever rational or reasonable?

So the fewer and fewer days they had remaining, the harder and harder he found it to surrender to sleep at night or return to it in the morning.

Now with the days they'd already spent together far outnumbering the ones remaining, and him not wanting to miss a minute with her, he'd begun actively struggling against sleep in the same way that for so long he'd actively struggled _to_ sleep.

Could it really already be Tuesday?

He knew it was.

Rued how time, like it was so often wont to do when she was here, hurried past. No matter how hard he tried to hold onto it, it continued to slip through his fingers. The minutes and hours too quickly turned into days.

Anyway, he figured he'd already slept through enough of his life as it was. So that at times like these, he tended to agree with Ben Franklin's assertion that "There will be sleeping enough in the grave."

And the night before it had been so good to see Sara rest and sleep and have a little peace.

There had been some confusion somewhere regarding their train reservations, which meant that while they still had the no larger than a coat closet compartment to themselves, they'd have to sleep in separate berths. But considering how packed the train had been with most of Europe's airports continuing to be closed, they'd been lucky to have netted seats to Rome, let alone beds.

Therefore, they'd each taken yet another unexpected change of plans in stride. Although Grissom tended to attribute his wife's easy acquiescence in this case more to exhaustion than forbearance.

For she'd sunk onto the seat beside him and within minutes, her head had begun to drop and droop onto his shoulder.

He probably should have gotten up to make the bed. But he hadn't had the heart to wake or disturb her. And he'd wanted too to keep her close to him, as he was in reality not all that keen on having to sleep alone.

So he'd carefully eased her down until she rested curled up like a cat in his lap. It probably wasn't the most comfortable of sleeping arrangements, but at least the compartment was more comfortable than having to sleep in the break room with only her arms on the table for a pillow.

As for himself, it wasn't like it had been the first time he'd slept sitting up, nor was it likely to be the last. In any case, he'd actually gotten fairly adept at the practice over the years.

It was worth it.

For a long while he'd sat there with her like that, ostensibly intent on reading, or so Sara had found him when she'd stirred several hours later.

"Gil?" she'd asked, blinking up at him in the blue light, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Go back to sleep, honey," he'd replied, pressing a kiss into her hair.

Whatever real somnolence-inducing effect his words or this gesture had, she'd soon settled back against him and slept.

Curious as to whether she also had that afternoon, he asked her, "You been awake all this time?"

To which Sara shook her head. "Dozed off," she begrudgingly admitted.

Grissom chuckled, "I do seem to have that effect on you."

She smiled at this, particularly when he added, "It's hard not to take it personally," in the same tone he'd once employed not long after they'd first begun regularly sleeping together to ask her if sex ordinarily made her sleepy.

They'd been nestled up together after waking early one evening when he'd apparently finally gotten up the nerve.

That she'd answered without any hesitation, "No, just with you," hadn't seemed to strike him as reassuring.

More bemused than anything, he'd replied, "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that."

Sara had laughed and kissed him and said, "As a compliment, Gris."

Lying there together with him, this time with all of Rome still waiting outside their door, she snuggled ever closer, telling Grissom, "I always sleep better when I'm home."

"Home?" he echoed.

As nice as the quiet 16th Century cloister turned _alberg_o was, he didn't think of it as home per se.

She shrugged, took up his hand, and interlacing her fingers with his said, "Wherever I'm with you, I'm home."

When she put it that way, Grissom couldn't agree more.

* * *

A/N: **Caesura**: a pause, especially for sense, usually near the middle of a verse line; any break, pause, or interruption – _dictionary dot com_.


	15. Fifteen: On the Beauty of Doing Nothing

**Fifteen: **_**Il Bel Far Niente**_**, or More on The Beauty of Doing Nothing **

"Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination,"

Roy M. Goodman

* * *

As Rome wasn't built in a day, nor could it be seen in one.

And Grissom and Sara certainly weren't all that keen on trying. Neither had any desire to cram or hurry or bustle about with all the characteristic busyness of the tourists who spend their entire vacation in a frantic rush to check off sites like one would a shopping list, only to return home feeling disappointed if they hadn't caught each and every thing mentioned in their guidebooks. They'd seen enough of that in Vegas, sightseers stopping barely long enough for a snapshot, just able to say _I've been there._ That was no way to enjoy a place. Or what time they had left with each other.

So instead of rushing to head back out, the two of them were more than content to linger a little longer under the bedclothes. Which ultimately meant it was well after four by the time they eventually rose.

As she was rehanging the last of their rain damp towels in the bathroom, Sara paused to regard the tub there with a bit of longing. It wasn't that their condo back in Vegas didn't possess one. It did, a rather nice garden tub actually. But with her hectic as usual schedule, she didn't get to make much use of it, leisurely soaks seeming far too indulgent a luxury. And she hadn't exactly run into a lot of tubs you could stretch out during her time in Europe. When it came to the one in their Quartier Latin apartment, small was a bit both of an over and understatement.

Apparently her loitering look hadn't escaped her husband's notice. "Why don't you?" he urged from behind her.

"What?" she asked caught slightly off guard.

"Go on. Take one," Grissom insisted. "We've got plenty of time before dinner."

Turned out that no self-respecting Roman would go out for_ cena_ before eight and even that was considered early.

When Sara continued to hesitate, he added, "It is a Roman custom, you know, bathing -"

Sensing further exposition was likely to be forthcoming if she didn't interject, she said, "You mean '_Cum Romano Romanus eris?_'"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

"There's not somewhere else you want to be?" asked Sara in return.

"No."

Practically speaking, the Coliseum, Forum and most of Rome's museums were already closed or soon would be. Not that that didn't leave plenty to see. All of Rome was a museum. But centuries, if not millennia old as much of it was, it would all still be there in an hour.

"So go on," he said attempting to smooth his bed headed hair back to rights in the bathroom mirror. "I'm going to see if I can find a paper and if that helpful woman at the front desk has any recommendations for dinner."

Sara goggled at him. "You're serious?"

"Yeah," he replied with all his usual calm and collected certainty.

Her resultant "Okay" still slightly reluctant, Sara bent to start the water. At least she had the presence of mind to remember that the _C_ inscribed on the faucet stood for _hot_ not _cold_ in most languages in Europe. Grissom disappeared back into the bedroom to change.

It was however his turn to be caught up short when he returned a few minutes later. Sara had stripped down and sat perched on the edge of the tub testing the temperature of the water with her hand. But it wasn't just the sight of her, her hair piled haphazardly on her head to reveal that long arc of her neck which he had always found particularly inviting. She had traded the richly Provençal fragrance of lavender she frequently favored for the musky sweet citrusy scent of orange blossoms.

And for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he found himself transported back to their honeymoon, to the memory of the sight of his very naked newly wedded wife preparing for a soak. As she had on that occasion added a handful of orange petals from her wedding flowers to the water, forever after the smell reminded him of not only passion and desire but also of joy and the freshness of new life.

When she'd met his gaze that afternoon, her eyes had sparkled with mischief and so had her tone teasing as she had, "Voyeurism has never suited you, Gil." Not that the ribbing had been without cause or merit. He'd certainly been gaping that day, probably was now, with the look of a man who couldn't believe his good fortune.

The very present Sara seemed to share her past self's sentiment, for having caught him watching her ease her way into the steaming tub she grinned, "I'd invite you in, but you're way overdressed. That and it's a bit cramped as it is."

Room or not, the prospect Grissom had to admit was tempting, particularly as bath oil unlike bubbles or flower petals concealed little. And while it wasn't that he hadn't seen it all before, he was neither so old nor so accustomed to the sight to be inured or immune to the view. He was however equally capable of taking it all in from his new found perch on the edge of the tub.

Nor did Sara mind the attention or the company, though she did playfully murmur, "I thought you were going out."

"In a minute," he rejoined and motioned for her to lean forward so he could get her back.

Closing her eyes at the warm trickle of water down her neck and spine, Sara said, "So, what were you saying about baths being a Roman custom?"

For while she might have cut him off on the subject earlier, as long as he didn't stop his ministrations, her husband could talk about pretty much any subject he wanted: the mating rituals of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, the rates of corporeal decomposition in aquatic environments, how to make eggplant parmesan, what Melville's great white whale really symbolized.

"Borrowed. Egyptian originally," Grissom began. "But greatly improved upon. The earliest of the great baths of Rome was the Thermae Agrippae built right next to and about the same time as the Pantheon.

"Then when Rome went from a republic to an empire, each subsequent emperor tried to outdo the previous one with larger and more ostentatious baths. The epitome being the Baths of Diocletian in 302 A.D.

"You've seen most of what's left of it across the street from the Termini rail station. But for two hundred years it accommodated more than 18,000 people at a time. Had hot and cold baths, swimming pools, saunas, bars, a barber shop, sports and banquet facilities, a library and a brothel."

"So the baths were about more than just getting clean," Sara offered.

Grissom nodded. "They were social centers. And with everyone, slave to emperor patronizing them, one of the most democratic places in all of Rome. Everyone's equal with their clothes off," he supplied.

Sara smirked. "Well, some are more equal than others."

With a barely concealed half laugh of his own, he replied, "On that note," and was about to rise, only to halt at her tilting her head back to peer at him. Her face flush with the heat of the bath and the warmth of her smile, she practically glowed and with all the sun she'd gotten over the last few days having heightened her freckles, his eyes couldn't help but follow their constellations.

But knowing if he didn't go now, he never would, Grissom leaned in to brush his lips against her forehead in farewell. Sara having other ideas reached out a still dripping hand to draw him in for a proper kiss. At the soft, longing, possessive press, he almost gave up all thoughts of going entirely.

"Go on," she urged as he broke away.

* * *

At the sound of the door to their _camera d'albergo_ opening and closing once more, Sara decided to abbreviate the last of her _toilette_. Emerging from the bathroom wrapped only in a bath sheet and her still toweling her hair dry, she greeted him with a welcoming, "You're back," then with an amused yet pleased sort of grin added, "Finally."

By her accounting, he'd been gone rather long for someone who just went out to talk to the front desk clerk and look for a paper. For his part, Grissom only turned another page of the _International Herald Tribune_ he'd purchased.

Not that Sara was all that surprised by his absorption. Frankly, she'd been impressed he'd held out this long.

"They win?" she asked, knowing right well he was checking the baseball scores in the sports section.

"Looks like won three, lost one," came his half-absent reply.

Sara laughed. "I could have told you that. Yesterday," she said and retrieving her iPhone from the bedside table punched a couple of buttons before handing it to her husband. "How else do you think I've been keeping up?"

Baseball had, like a great many things when it came to Grissom, grown on her. Perhaps it was Grissom's frankly infectious enthusiasm or that boyish wonder of his. Didn't matter, she'd been sucked in all the same.

At her insistent "Try it," he took the phone, although he didn't really seem all that interested. Sara was about to attribute his reluctance to the whole old school versus new school way of doing things until she caught sight of the presence of a rather large neatly wrapped box atop her pile of clean clothes.

And realized her husband's practiced indifference was a bit too studied, even for him.

Nevertheless he only replied "Hmm," to her curious query of "Gil?"

Sara tried for a more direct approach. "What's this?" she asked, nudging the box.

Grissom glanced up over both his paper and reading glasses only long enough to say, "What does it look like?"

But the look was enough for Sara to catch that hint however fleeting of self-satisfaction playing about his mouth.

"If you're so curious," he added, ever nonchalant, "there's only one way to know. Open it, dear."

So she did, to uncover a vibrant, delicately floral patterned Kashmir shawl nestled inside. She smiled at the sight, it being a more colorful twin to the one Grissom had draped over her shoulders as a nuptial present the night they were married.

"You really didn't go out just for a newspaper, did you?" Sara sighed when her powers of speech finally returned.

"I did actually," he replied. "Saw it in a window while I was out." But his subsequent admission of "Couldn't resist," came out slightly sheepish and his, "If you don't like..." a little uncertain, at least for the usual ever-confident Grissom.

However dazed as she still was, Sara broke in with an "Of course I do."

And of course she did. It was beautiful. And she told him as much. Although as she ran her hands along the soft, almost silky material she confessed, "There's just one problem. I don't have anything to wear it with."

Having expected a more rustic holiday, Sara hadn't exactly planned for nights out on the town when she'd packed. And as loath as she was to admit it, she often felt underdressed in Paris where even housewives would frequently show up to do their market shopping in haute couture, looking as elegant, made up and carefully put together as if they had just stepped off a runway. And Italians, or at least the Romans she'd encountered, were all the more fashion conscious. Here beauty seemed almost instinctive, for both women and men.

Even the _polizia_ wore Armani, a perk Catherine would probably have much appreciated. But Sara had a hard time wrapping her head around crime fighting in four-inch heels. Yet they did, those heels tapping with the staccato of what she had to reluctantly concede was well-deserved vanity.

By comparison, Sara felt less than chic. In her not entirely unrumpled travel clothes, she looked like a tourist and knew it. Most of the time this wouldn't have bothered her, or at least not been overly troubling. But fingering the fine weave work, she found it did.

Not immune to the way his wife's face had suddenly fallen, Grissom put down his paper and suggested softly, "Honey, you might want to check the box again."

How she could have missed the dark midnight nearly black blue hued fabric beneath, Sara could only attribute to her stupefaction at having first discovered the shawl there. But if she'd been surprised by the gift of the wrap, she was flabbergasted by the present of the dress she next withdrew.

It wasn't that her husband wasn't free with gifts. On the contrary. But he tended to favor small things like books, simple jewelry, that shawl for their wedding. There'd been a pretty robe or two over the years. And while Eddie might have been fond of buying Catherine teddies for their anniversaries, neither Grissom nor Sara were really into fancy lingerie. He didn't really see the point and knew that his wife was more into practicality and comfort when it came to undergarments. As for proper clothes, while she'd bought him the periodic shirt and a sweater or two for the winters he'd spent away from Vegas, Grissom had never been so bold to do the same. And certainly never a dress.

So for a few moments she literally felt like a fish caught out of water, silently gaping wide eyed and wide mouthed at him, unable even to stammer out the single syllable of his name.

Grissom grinned, rather pleased at her reaction and said, "It's nice to know I can still surprise you."

Sara shook her head. "You never cease to amaze me," she countered. Then having regained a bit of composure asked, "Is this a hint?"

When he appeared not to understand the question she added, "What's the occasion? Or did you just want to see me in a dress?"

"An added benefit," he replied in all sincerity. "And no, no occasion. I didn't know I needed one. Just dinner, Sara."

Sara returned his smile, knowing as she did, that no one back in Vegas would have believed it, any of it, if she ever did tell them. She seriously doubted them being anything but bewildered at even the mere prospect of the words _Grissom_ and _romance_ in the same sentence, let alone in practice. Not that she had any intention of enlightening them to the truth that Gil Grissom was, contrary to popular thought and belief, a very loving, affectionate, even passionate man. Much like the rest of him, it might be a quiet, deliberate sort of passion, but it was passion all the same.

"So," he began, rising to his feet. "_Vuoi uscire insieme_?' Means 'Want to go out together?' I think."

"As in a date?"

"Yeah, as in a date."

Sara paused as if to think about it. Except she didn't need to think about it and not at the moment really all that interested in keeping her husband in suspense, she nodded and laughed, "You're lucky I shaved my legs. But you're going to have to give me a few minutes."

* * *

Paper in hand, Grissom disappeared into the hotel's _arancia _lined courtyard. Which was where Sara found him not too much later, comfortably ensconced at a small table and occupied as he was with catching up on more than just baseball.

At the sight of the pair of as yet untouched glasses of rich, deep blood orange crimson in front of him, she piped up from behind, "Waiting for someone?"

While he slowly shut his paper, he didn't turn to answer, "Just my wife."

"_Just_?" Sara said, with a trace of affront in her query.

"As in _only_," he countered, slipping the spectacles from his nose, closing them with his usual measured purpose and replacing them and the paper on the table before getting to his feet. "The only one worth waiting for."

Coming from anyone else, it probably would have sounded like a line. But lines weren't part of Gil Grissom's rather extensive repertoire of knowledge. That and he probably couldn't actually pull one off if he tried. Plus, the way his eyes had lit up at the very sight of her, something she'd never seem them do for anything or anyone else, gave it and him away - as they always did.

"That's better," she beamed. Then indicating the dress said, "It... It fits," impressed and astonished and yet not that he'd gotten the size right. Not because she had any doubts when it came to her husband's observational skills. They were after all legendary. And he had handled her laundry enough. It was more that she never had quite puzzled out how European clothing sizes worked for herself.

"I lucked out," he admitted. "There was a girl in the shop who looked about your size."

"You got that good of a look?" smirked Sara.

Choosing to ignore this jab, Grissom rejoined, "See, explanations really do tend to spoil the wonder of a thing."

To which she shook her head. "No, I'm still impressed."

Grissom having finally seemed to regain some sort of control over his limbs quickly covered the few steps separating them. When he leaned in she thought he might kiss her in the continental manner.

Instead, he whispered, "_Ciao, bella_," into her ear.

Recalling their conversation on the train the night before, Sara knew he intended far more than a conventional greeting and momentarily considered chiding him for flattery, but rather opted to tease him about the progress he was making with his Italian.

However Grissom had no illusions when it came to his _italiano_. He hadn't been joking when he'd told Sara he'd been lucky in the shop. His extremely limited language skills didn't cover much more than telling the wonderfully understanding shopkeeper waiting on him that he wanted _un regalo per la moglie_, a gift for his wife, and that he'd only been able to manage as the word for _gift_ was the same in Italian as it was in Spanish. The rest had come out as a horrible mélange of _français_, _español_ and pigeon Italian or when that all failed, rather shamefaced English.

But in his defense, a week ago he hadn't even known he was going to Italy, so it wasn't as if he'd had a real chance to prepare. A handful of hours of crammed impromptu language lessons on the train ride over didn't even come close to cutting it. Although apart from being amused, the shop's several _venditori_ and attendant customers appeared to appreciate the effort all the same.

"Anyway," Sara was saying in response, "it's the dress."

Except it wasn't.

Even if he had greatly enjoyed the rather rare times he'd seen her in one. But it wasn't the dress, as lovely as it was. Its simple, unadorned elegance certainly suited her. The dark sheath swished just above the knee, and while her arms were bare beneath the shawl, the décolletage left more to the imagination than not.

It was the hint, the subtle reveal, the tease even perhaps that was so enticing he supposed. For Grissom never really had understood the appeal of strip clubs. All that flesh on constant display, with so very little mystery to it all. The Japanese understood it better, in the titillation of just a flash of bare wrist or that exposed expanse of skin at the neck.

Sara's neck was bare that night. Her hair upswept as it had been in the bath, loose and curly, but neater now, even if a few rogue strands had already slipped free to frame the cheeks that bore only the light dusting of powder. Her lips, the slight hint of sheen. In all, very little art, but much beauty.

That never had escaped his attention. Not now, or earlier sopping wet as she'd been. Nor when hot and sweaty from rainforest humidity or Vegas's drier heat. Or when she was wearing those horrid lab coveralls and covered in grease or worse. Not even the first time they'd met, her with that ponytail of hers.

But his admiration was interrupted by her holding up the chain to a simple gold necklace he'd given her a few years back for no reason at all and saying, "Could you?"

Wordlessly, he nodded.

It wasn't as if she wasn't perfectly capable of latching it herself. Sara just rather liked it when he did. So she turned, lifted the few straggling curls from the back of her neck. Deftly, he did up the clasp. The three intertwined rings settled with the chain against her skin. However sappy it might be, she always had appreciated the sentiment behind them.

_Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow_.

"And always," he'd said the day he'd first draped it around her neck.

Back in the present, among the sweet fragrance of blossoming orange, her fingers closed over the charm for a moment and her eyes shut, but more at the feel of his warm breath and the barest brush of his lips along the inside of her neck.

"Gil," she sighed.

But all too soon, he'd retreated to a more seemly distance.

"Ready?" he asked offering her his arm.

She wasn't. Not quite yet.

"I... uh... um... I just remembered..." she stammered still a little befuddled. "I... forgot... Could you... with me... back to the room. Just for a second?"

The door there was barely closed behind them when she turned and her mouth was on his. A sweeter aperitif or more desirable or pleasurable beginning to the evening neither could have imagined.

As they broke away, Grissom asked, "Did you really forget something?"

Sara only smiled.


	16. Sixteen: Roman Holiday

**Sixteen: Roman Holiday**

"I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days —

three such days with you I could fill with more delight

than fifty common years could ever contain,"

_Letter to Fanny Brawne, July 1, 1819_, John Keats

Thankfully in this instance, Gil Grissom's general thoughtful and thoroughness when it came to gifts also included a sensible simple pair of flats. They might not be properly broken in, but they were certainly better than the alternative. For one, the boots she'd been wearing for the better part of the week wouldn't have quite gone with the dress. That and heels were in Sara's opinion and experience evil incarnate.

Even more so here. How_ le donne romane _managed on the notoriously uneven cobblestone walks, she had no idea. And was more than happy not to have to find out.

So that when her husband proposed they walk rather than take a cab across town, Sara readily agreed. Unlike earlier that afternoon, the evening was clear and calm, cool but not cold, perfect for walking. And_ a piedi_ really was the only way to see Rome. Even if the traffic was murder.

With all of its aggressive cut and thrust drivers, _il traffico romano _was almost a living thing. And the cyclists on their harshly, yet aptly buzzing Vespas were almost worse. This coupled with the narrow roads and frequently even narrower walkways, pedestrians navigated _le strade_ of the eternal city at their own peril. And when it came to crossing the street, it hadn't taken the two of them long to realize there were only two types of _pedoni_ in Rome: the quick and the dead.

All so much so, that at lunch that day, Sara had shook her head and lamented over the strange oversight whereby Rome had its own patron saint for motorists in Santa Francesca Romana (for whom cars would line up for miles just to be blessed every March) and yet not one protecting those who traveled by foot. Perhaps St. Christopher would just have to do.

Despite or perhaps in spite of the endemic near homicidal vehicular recklessness, there was along with the rest of the chaos of Rome a measure of sense to it all.

Maybe it was time, contradictory as the concept was in a city where old and new stood side by side.

Something no more in evidence than in the Trastevere neighborhood they passed through on their way to dinner. With its endless zigzagging maze of cobblestone streets and small, richly earthy-hued houses draped in ivy, bedecked with flower boxes and with the day's laundry hung as it always was overhead outside, their hotel's _rione_ or district was very much as it had been more than six centuries before. The sailors and fishermen who originally made Trastevere home had long been replaced by artists, merchants, café owners, restaurateurs and university students, but the mix of Old World sensibilities and bohemian bonhomie still remained.

It wasn't all picturesque. No place ever was. No matter what the travel brochures promised. Pollution and acid rain had done more to destroy what antiquity remained than centuries of barbarian hordes or requisitioning popes. And while Trastevere remained mostly safe from the blight of graffiti, it colored much of the rest of Rome, no matter how much the city tried to keep it at bay.

Perhaps it was in the blood, this seemingly indelible human desire to mark one's presence, to exclaim _I was here!_ in such a tangible way. A thirst for bit of immortality, even if it only lasted until someone came by to clean it up. For when the buried city of Pompeii was finally excavated nearly 1,700 years later, archeologists found amongst the well-preserved buildings, mosaics, possessions and artwork, the scrawl of vandals on the walls. Perhaps some things never really did change.

Used as they were to all the tagging in Vegas, the spray paint didn't bother them. Rome may not be perfect, but it certainly had an allure all its own, causing Grissom to intone to his wife, "'The charm of Italy is akin to that of being in love.' Stendhal," he supplied.

"Is that so?" Sara laughed, taking up his arm as they crossed over the Ponte Sisto and into Rome proper.

He nodded and she waited for him to expound upon this, like he was often want to do. She was frankly perplexed when he didn't. So that when he left it at that, she prompted, "And?"

"And what?" he asked in return.

"And that's all you're going to say?"

Grissom merely shrugged, "You do know what Anatole France said about quotations."

"I haven't the foggiest."

"'When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it,'" he offered, then said, "Some quotations need no amendment."

Sara only shook her head and sighed. Yes, some things never did change.

* * *

Throughout much of the morning and early afternoon, Rome's Campo dei Fiori was home to one of the largest and most famous fresh produce markets in the city. At this hour, only a lone flower seller remained in attendance. Still, Sara steered Grissom over for a better look.

It was a habit she'd picked up in Paris, making the time to literally stop and smell the roses and other flowers on display. Even if she seldom ever bought any, as vibrant and alive as they were, the bright blossoms were just too tempting to resist a peek.

Here cellophane wrapped bunches of fiery red lilies, fresh faced daisies, sunny sunflowers, fragrant carnations and smile-inducing Gerbers peered up from their buckets begging to be admired.

And unlike most men, well those not in search of the floral equivalent of _I'm sorry_, Grissom appreciated the spectacle. Or perhaps more precisely appreciated his wife's appreciation.

Unsurprisingly their lingering loitering attracted the stall keeper's attention.

The olive skinned and well-weathered faced older man greeted them with the customary "_Prego_," before asking, "_Americani_?"

As Grissom replied, "_Sì_," both he and Sara wondered what made it so obvious.

"Married?" the man asked in an uneasy sort of English.

"_Sì_," said Grissom again.

"Soon?"

By which they both took to mean recently.

At her husband's third answer of "_Sì_," Sara was having a hard time concealing her amusement and shot Grissom a meaningful look as if to say_ I told you so_.

When they'd first arrived on the continent nearly a year before, Sara had laughingly assured Grissom that everyone was going to think she was his second wife. At the time, he'd openly scoffed at the notion. Since then all evidence tended to point to Sara being in the right.

Grissom however was far too occupied by the _fioraio_ taking off his battered driving hat as he motioned for Grissom to lean in.

"You are very lucky man," the man grinned, then murmured almost conspiratorially, "She is very young and beautiful, your wife."

While Grissom whole-heartedly agreed with this sentiment, Sara had to work to choke back her disbelief at such a flagrant display of flattery. For by her own estimation she was neither. As she was nearing forty these days, it wasn't that she was old, but it had been quite some time since she'd thought of herself as young exactly. As for beautiful - yeah, right.

But the _venditore_ was just getting to the crux of his sales pitch, saying, "_Un bel fiore per una bella donna_. A beautiful flower for a beautiful lady."

Sara whispered, "I bet he knows how to say that in ten languages."

To which Grissom replied, "Doesn't make it any less true."

"Sucker," she chuckled.

"Why not?"

Seeing that her husband was indeed in earnest and knowing the impossibility of getting him to change his mind once it was made up, Sara simply shook her head and gave the offerings a more critical eye.

After a moment she said, "Have a suggestion?"

"Roses," came his immediate reply.

"Isn't that a little cliché, Gil?"

"Not in Rome," he answered. "When in Rome choose roses."

This time he didn't hesitate with further explication. "Ancient Romans adored roses. Stuffed their pillows with them. Scented the public baths and fountains with rose water and the awnings at the Coliseum and other amphitheaters were steeped in the sent. They scattered petals at ceremonies and banquets. Cleopatra knowing the Roman penchant for roses welcomed Antony in a room carpeted more than a foot deep with petals. And once Nero accidentally smothered a guest to death from the sheer weight of the shower of rose petals."

As ever impressed by the breadth and depth of her husband's reply, Sara said, "Why don't you just help me pick one."

To her surprise, Grissom inclined to choose by smell rather than sight. From among the pristine whites, hot pinks, deep crimsons, lemon yellows and pale apricots he withdrew a bloom that began golden but blushed coral at its tips.

"This one," he said, handing it to her before turning to pay the man.

The merchant sent them off with a smile and a "_Grazie, signore, signora_."

Taking up her husband's arm again, Sara smirked, "I'm telling you he uses that line on everyone."

Grissom shrugged. "Can't fault his salesmanship. It worked."

"But perhaps not exactly how he planned it," she rejoined. "You still carrying that pocket knife of yours on you?"

He gave her a reluctant, "Yeah."

Sara held out her hand. "Hand it over."

Which he did, but not without a leery sort of "Okay," and watching her with a hint of horror proceed to deftly cut down the stem, added, "Sara, you do realize the most expensive part of the rose is the stem and not the flower?"

"Noted. But it's not for me. It's for you."

That stopped him in his tracks.

Sara slipped the bloom into the buttonhole of his suit jacket.

"There, that's better," she finished. "Although I'm not so sure that pink's quite your color."

"The sentiment works," he countered.

"Will I have to wait until I get back to Vegas to ask Greg or are you going to clue me in this time?"

"No," Grissom smiled. "It means _friendship turning into love_."

And Sara returned his grin. That was how it had been with them. Friends into lovers into spouses who were still friends and lovers at heart.

"Thank you," he said and meant it.

"For a flower?" she laughed incredulous.

"No, dear."

Sara nodded and smoothed the lapels of his jacket before pausing to peer up at him.

He'd saved his best dress for that night: a blue button down and dark slacks beneath his spring weight jacket. The ensemble coming off the better for the lack of a tie. All in all_, _he was _trés chic_. No doubt Catherine would be impressed as to how much Paris was rubbing off on him.

How it had all managed to make it nearly a week in his bag and emerge utterly unrumpled baffled Sara. They were she reasoned probably all made of one of those never wrinkle modern textile marvels.

But as much as the clothes made the man, that wasn't where the attraction ultimately lie.

For he certainly was handsome, her husband. Of course he always had been. Or at least Sara had found him so.

Yet it had to be one of those cosmic injustices that Grissom succeeded in getting better looking every year and so effortlessly too. But as much as she might bemoan the fact, she certainly couldn't find fault in the results.

His beard had begun to grow in nicely over the last five days. Even with it slightly more salt than pepper these days, it leant him a sophisticated sort of roguishness that Sara found sexy, even if she knew her husband would dismiss the implication, let alone appellation.

After all the months of fine French food, his face was a little fuller, his features now far more softer and far less angular. And true, there were a few more lines about his eyes and mouth these days, but she knew them to have come more from laughter and smiles than frustration and sorrow. Ultimately, they suited him. And yeah, the grey hair was still attractive, very attractive.

Yes, he really was even more handsome then when they'd first met more than a decade before.

Sara hadn't realized she'd reached up to caress his cheek until she felt him cover her hand with his and turn to press a kiss into her palm.

"He was right," he said, "the flower seller."

"About?"

"You."

She looked dubious. "Uh huh."

Grissom quoted,

"'She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meets in her aspect and her eyes.'"

"Byron?" she asked, recognizing the speaker, but curious at the choice.

"He spent time in Rome."

Sara was about to tell him he was full of it, but Grissom was looking at her with that same raw awe and devotion as he had that first morning after they were married. She'd rolled over, still half asleep, having woken to the feel of his lips at the back of her neck to find him wearing that exact same expression.

He'd kissed her then and with no quotations, no borrowed words, just open and unguarded honesty whispered, "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

She'd doubted it then, with the sleep still in her eyes and her hair she knew had to be mussed from their lovemaking the night before. But it was truth to him. There was no mistaking that fact.

And she'd been pleased, even if she hadn't understood it, found it hard to accept that her now husband had long regarded her as beautiful.

So she'd laughed, teased, "Will you say that when I'm old and grey?" and been caught up short when he'd replied, "No."

But not nearly as much as when he'd added, "You'll be even more beautiful then."

_Love looks not with the eyes, but in the mind_, indeed, she thought.

With those same eyes on her now, she just smiled and took the compliment in the spirit in which it was given.

* * *

Even in the very last remains of the day, the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna were a good place to meet up, write postcards, take photographs, flirt, people watch and indulge in the Italian custom of _l'arte d'arrangiarsi_, the art of making something out of nothing. Mostly though people were _intalliadosi,_ hanging out deciding what to do and until then simply enjoying the anticipation of the pleasure to come.

It was unquestionably a far different rhythm to life than in Vegas, no less vital and alive, but far less frenzied. And a nice change.

The Steps themselves were a pageant all their own, decked out as they were every spring in riots of pink azaleas. But it was the fountain at their base that caught Grissom and Sara's attention. Not that fountains were uncommon in Rome. The city was host to more than 200 _fontane_ of various shapes, sizes and spectacle, once causing Percy Bysshe Shelly to maintain that the fountains of Rome alone were worth the journey. _La fontana della barca_ or the _barcaccia _was certainly a whimsical iteration.

Built by Pietro Bernini, the father of the much-celebrated baroque sculptor and architect extraordinaire, the "leaking boat" whose construction predated the Spanish Steps by nearly a century, reportedly marked the place where after the particularly bad flooding of the Tiber 1598, a large barge came to rest. Now a doomed stone ship occupied its place, fated to forever be taking on water as it appeared to sink into the piazza itself.

None of that was what caused them to stop and stare.

Gesturing to the prominent three bee crest that adorned the bark's prow, Sara took a couple of curious steps across the stone plinth for a closer look and said, "Are those what I think they are?"

"Barberini bees?" supplied Grissom who had followed so close she could feel him behind her. "Yeah."

"You sound surprised."

Registering his wife's own surprise at this, he sighed, "Contrary to popular belief, I don't know everything, Sara."

Though her rejoining "Really?" came out dubious, in truth it was more tease than anything.

"I have never -" he protested.

"No, you never have," readily conceded Sara. "Somehow it just seems to work out that way. Well, most of the time."

Grissom didn't need her to tell him what she was thinking. Her smile said it all.

Earlier that day, just after their very early lunch and just before the heavens opened up, Sara had tugged a rather reluctant Grissom into a quiet little haberdashery. Even if she knew her husband would never agree to a new hat, she'd thought it amusing to try. And to his credit, Grissom good-naturedly humored his wife for a few minutes. But when the middle-aged _capellaia_, came to inquire if there was something in particular he might like to try on, Grissom had politely declined on the grounds that he already had a hat. Or at least that had been what he thought he'd said. But while the clerk had only given him a rather bemused look in response, Sara seemed to be having a really hard time not laughing. A really hard time.

Curious as to the source of his wife's sudden mirth, Grissom had hurriedly thanked the woman and steered his wife out of the shop.

"What's so funny?"

Sara had snickered. "_Capelli_ is Italian for 'hair.' _Cappello _the word for 'hat.' You just told her you didn't need a hat because you already had hair."

"And this is funny because?"

"Serves you right," she'd supplied, rather unhelpfully in his opinion. "Lunch," she'd reminded him.

"You're still mad?"

"No."

Which was the truth. She wasn't _still _mad, though admittedly she had been rather piqued at the time by his commenting upon her ordering lunch at the _Pizza al taglio,_ "Your Italian sounds just like your Spanish."

So much so that she'd literally turned on him and not quite snapped, "And you can do better?"

His reply of "Merely an observation, not a criticism, my dear," didn't do much to help the situation.

"Pot," she'd intoned.

"It's not hypocrisy if you know you know nothing," he'd countered. "_Parlo molto poco l'italiano._ I speak very little Italian," he'd offered and his plodding, very nearly inept pronunciation succeeded in earning him the barest hint of a smile from his wife.

There was no point in denying it, they both pretty much sucked at speaking Italian. Their listening skills weren't all the much better. The native _Romani _spoke far faster than their ears worked. And most of the meaning behind the accompanying hand gestures were lost on them.

Although it wasn't just Italian their ears picked up from the crowd along the cascading stairs. Populated by tourists of all sorts, the place was a veritable Tower of Babel, with as many different languages being spoken simultaneously as there were conversations. This of course being nothing new. With The Steps having originally been built to link the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See and the late renaissance church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti which towered above the piazza belonging to the French, for centuries the area had been home to a variety of nationalities. In fact, so many British visitors and expatriates made their home here that it was known as the _ghetto of the English_.

"See that window there?" Grissom asked, indicating one on the third floor corner of the dusky pink house adjacent to The Steps. "Keats died there."

"John Keats, the Romantic poet?"

"Or as the Italians regarded him, _Giovanni Keats_. In 1821. Because of a bad review if you listen to Byron, but really from consumption."

Sara grimaced. "Not a good way to die."

"No," Grissom agreed. Death by tuberculosis was a particularly gruesome way to go. "He and the painter Joseph Severn came here for Keats' health, ostensibly to get away from the cold, wet English winters. But Keats only spent 100 days in Rome after a problematic nearly two month journey by sea to get here."

Sara whistled, "Remind me never again to complain about the length of the flight from Vegas to Paris."

Grissom continued, "He's buried not far from the garden this morning. The story goes that he used to lie in bed with the window open, listening to the fountain. The sound supposedly the source for his epitaph, 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' Although Keats was likely commenting more on how little his work was appreciated in his lifetime. He died thinking himself a failed poet."

"And yet is now one of the most famous," Sara said with all the resignation of one knowing too well how the world worked sometimes. "I have to admit I've never really been all that into the Romantics."

"He did have a few things right," Grissom replied. And running his hand down the bare skin of her arm where her shawl had slipped, recited,

"'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness.'"

Sara smiled. "You're full of poetry today," she observed. Then hurriedly amended, "That's not a bad thing. I like it. I always have. Well, not always, but..."

"Rome I suppose," Grissom explained before she could babble her way into mischief.

That made sense. Half the literary world had been to Rome. The other half dreamed of it, or so it seemed. Hence how Rome tended to feature heavily as part of the proverbial Grand Tour, that indispensable element of aristocratic education.

Sara cocked her head and chuckled. "I just realized it. What literary type you are. It makes perfect sense."

Grissom waited for her to continue.

"You're the Victorian hero. Patient, disciplined, reserved. A little moody and broody from time to time."

"I'm not moody."

"Not so much anymore, no," Sara agreed. "But even Edward Rochester could be pleasant and charming."

At his bafflement at her reference she added, "I have read something other than crime books. And you're doing it right now, Gil. Being broody."

She could see him about to protest he was not, but seem to think better of the idea.

"It was meant to be a compliment," she said trying to get him to return her reassuring smile. "And I do like you just the way you are. But that doesn't mean you don't drive me nuts. And don't tell me you've never felt the same. But 'Love is not love…'" she began.

And he brightened at this, mentally supplying the next few lines:

_Which alters when it alteration finds,_

_Or bends with the remover to remove:_

_O no! it is an ever-fixed mark…_

His love for Sara was certainly that to him.

* * *

"It's too bad," Grissom said as they paused to sit at the foot of The Steps for a moment before heading off to the _ristorante_ for dinner, "that you can't eat gelato here anymore."

Up until the moment he mentioned it, Sara hadn't noticed, but he was right. There wasn't a hint of food here. Which did come as a surprise as she couldn't imagine a nicer spot for an impromptu picnic.

But it was his rue that more intrigued her, prompting her to ask, "Can't leave Rome without eating gelato?"

"I take it you've never seen _Roman Holiday_?" he inquired in return. When she continued to look blank, he said, "1950's classic. Gregory Peck. Audrey Hepburn in her first major role. She won an Academy Award for it."

Rather reluctantly Sara admitted, "I can't say I have. It was a little before my time. A little before yours, too."

Grissom didn't deign to dignify her jab with a reply. Instead, he said, "Hepburn plays a princess who runs off into Rome to have a bit of freedom if just for a day. And Peck gives her that. Although his motives aren't entirely altruistic. In the beginning, he's out for a scoop. Journalist," he explained. "But she ends up doing all the things she's always wanted to do, but was never able to. Just sit in a café. Have a cigarette."

At the disapproving look Sara gave to this, he shrugged, "It was the 50's, cigarette smoking was still cool. She bobs her hair. Goes dancing on a barge on the Tiber. But she first meets up with Peck again while sitting on The Steps eating gelato. It's the start of an adventure that takes them all over Rome.

"One of the most famous scenes is their ride through Rome on a Vespa. Peck's a far braver man than I. I'm not so sure I'd trust to ride behind you on a scooter," Grissom grinned.

"So now you're complaining about my driving?"

"Well, needless to say, they leave chaos and destruction in their wake."

"Sounds like our road trip."

"It wasn't that bad, Sara," Grissom maintained.

"Sounds nice," she said.

And the movie did. Like all the things a holiday is supposed to be - an escape from usual life, from occupations and preoccupations if only for a little while. Vacate life for a bit.

"So how does it end? Happily ever after?"

At this, a little of Grissom's brightness faded, knowing as he did that he and Sara would all too soon have to play out a very similar denouement. Still, he kept his tone light when he replied, "You'll just have to watch it to find out."

"I'll add it to my queue when I get back."


	17. Seventeen: Bella Notte

_Continued from_ Roman Holiday

**Seventeen: **_**Bella Notte**_

"You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams,"

Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss

* * *

_Despite the title there will be no spaghetti and meatballs or serenading in this chapter, but hopefully still plenty of romance._

_With thanks to V for loaning me this bit of Italian wisdom._

_

* * *

Fiori di zucca farciti con ricotta e timo cotto al forno con pomodorini e pinoli tostati_

_Pecorino in crosta di mandorle con agretti, pere cotte al vino rosso e pepe rosa_

_Primo sale con fagiolini, patate novelle e crema di tartufi_

_Lasagnetta di burrata con melanzane e salsa di pomodoro e basilico_

_Risotto con fiori di zucca, zucchine, zafferano e provola_

The offerings at Il Margutta RistorArte read more like poetry than _un menù_.

Or perhaps it only sounded that way, spoken in Grissom's deep, rich baritone.

And that was just the set menu and only the bare beginnings of it.

After a day spent surrounded by the sounds of it, Sara was starting to understand why Italian was the _lingua franca_ for opera, as its almost melodic rhythms and natural euphony practically rolled off the tongue.

Well, not perhaps her tongue. Grissom, with his almost instinctive ear for languages was another story.

As much as she might be loathed to admit it, her husband's Italian was, despite its limited scope, just as sexy as his French. Forget reading the phone book or encyclopedia, Grissom reading the menu was sexy.

Of course she wasn't about to tell him that. Nor was she about to protest or complain when he continued to list off the various courses.

Although halfway through his recitation she did lean in to whisper more curious than concerned, "You have any idea what any of this is?"

"Apart from all _vegetariano_, not really," Grissom freely admitted. "Although I'm pretty sure _tagliatelle fresche al pomodoro e basilico con bufala e peperoncini freschi, _is fresh tagliatelle with tomato, basil and peppers."

Whatever it was, it all sounded delicious.

Even if it was certainly nothing like the bill of fair at the _ristoranti italiani_ back in Vegas. But then Rome's oldest vegetarian restaurant didn't exactly serve _cucina italiana _or even _cucina romanesca_.

Which apparently did little to diminish the place's popularity. From their secluded candlelit corner in the back, Sara peered out into the crowded dining room that was part art installation as well. And far fancier than most places they frequented when they did go out.

According to what Grissom had been told, it was _the_ vegetarian restaurant in the city. What that meant exactly neither knew, as places specializing in _cucina vegetariana_ were rather rare in Rome.

"Do I want to know how you managed to get a reservation here?" asked Sara. "More of that Grissom charm, or does that not work in Italian?"

"Pity mostly," he confessed. "That and I think the clerk's brother's wife's cousin works in the kitchen. Or something like that. I got lost somewhere in the middle of her explanation."

Sara chuckled at this. "I suppose we could always try the menu translator on the phone," she offered.

"Why don't we just be surprised," countered Grissom, closing his menu.

"Surprised?" Sara echoed. "I thought you weren't all that keen on surprises, Gil."

"They've turned out pretty good so far."

"Yeah, the holiday's gone without a hitch," she rued. "If you don't count volcanoes and..."

"No," he cut in before she could get going, "I mean you."

Her mouth formed the start of a surprised _Oh_, but before she could say anything more, their waiter rejoined them.

With turn about being fair play and all, as payback for his earlier comments on her abilities - or lack thereof - when it came to ordering lunch in Italian, Sara looked to her husband to order, the challenge obvious in her eyes.

What Sara hadn't counted on was the _cameriere_ swiftly switching to a simple, rather practiced English as he offered to go through the menu for them if they'd like.

In any case, Grissom opted for the universal _pick, point and please_ method of ordering.

"Not fair," she grumbled once they were alone again.

Grissom shrugged as if to indicate he did try. Which did little to mollify his wife.

Although his taking up her left hand in his, his thumb brushing as it so often did these days over the simple gold band he'd slipped there during their wedding, did, however unintentional the act might be. The fondness and affection in that simple gesture always did make her heart flutter, even if they did hold hands more often these days.

Maybe it was all the time they spent apart or the fact that handholding was pretty tame as far as PDAs went in either Paris or Rome. It didn't really matter. She enjoyed the warmth of it, the reassuring pressure and presence of it. That for no reason at all, he'd take up her hand and when it came time, seemed far more reluctant to let it go.

Grissom's face and eyes softened into a smile as they met hers and he beamed at his wife with all the open admiration of a man who couldn't believe his good fortune. And while Sara was used to such looks in private, in the quiet comfortable confines of home when it was just the two of them alone, as intimate and palpable a look as it was, it was still new for it to be on public display.

"Thank you," he said. "For all of this."

"Dinner out was your idea," she replied.

"You know what I mean."

"Gil, almost every plan I made fell through. It was just supposed to be a simple trip to the south of France for a week. And instead we're..."

"Here," Grissom finished contentedly, as if he couldn't have imagined any better of an outcome.

"I guess you can't say it hasn't been an eventful trip," Sara conceded.

"No, you can't," he agreed. "But then life's usually eventful with you. And no," he added in anticipation of the question he sensed she was about to ask next, "that's not a bad thing at all."

For when it came to Sara, to his life with her, _unexpected_ was an understatement. She'd certainly thrown a wrench in his plans. He'd been content to live and exist alone in his admittedly Spartan, purely rational and intellectual existence. Or at least he'd thought he was. But then as it turned out, this particular kind of unexpected proved to be far better than anything he ever could have conceived.

So he grinned, intoning softly, "'_Non tutte le ciambelle escono col buco_.'"

Causing Sara to splutter, "Come again?"

"'_Non tutte le ciambelle escono col buco' - _literally _Not all donuts turn out with a hole_. Means not all things turn out as planned."

"And you know this how?" she asked, curious as to how her husband had imbibed this complicated bit of Italian wisdom and yet hadn't mastered much more apart from flirting than how to order a coffee.

"Signora Bianchi at the hotel," he offered. "There was a couple complaining about how with the volcano shutting the airports down, their holiday had gone to hell. She only shrugged and..."

"And provided a platitude about donuts," Sara laughed. "How did that go over?"

"Not so hot."

"I can imagine."

"Still, good to remember."

"Yeah, but we get enough donut comments back in Vegas," she said.

"Well," he insisted in all seriousness, "you do know how to show a guy a good time."

"I could say the same," replied Sara, then at the peculiar look he was giving her, added, "You know what I mean."

At this moment, their waiter returned with their drinks.

Grissom raised his glass, "A toast. To the best laid plans - may they often go awry."

Sara grinned as she returned her husband's affectionate salute.

"You do realize the origins of toasts," she said after they both drank.

"Term comes from the Roman custom of dropping a piece of burnt bread into a jug of wine to cut the acidity, particularly if the wine had gone bad. The practice however..."

"Was to guard against poisoning," she finished.

"Should I be worried?" he asked.

Sara looked as bewildered as her "What do you mean?" sounded.

"They do say poisoning is a woman's art."

"Funny. I'd be more worried about my cooking if I were you."

"It's not that bad, dear."

"And you're just digging yourself a bigger hole," she laughed.

And her husband took the hint and changed the subject.

* * *

Dinner was a leisurely affair, served and eaten that way. Plate after plate came, each successive dish more lavish than the last. Most were almost too pretty to eat; the art on the plate well matched to the fineness of the art on the wall. And neither of them had any reasons to regret their selections.

Although the_ fiori di zucca,_ fried zucchini flowers, were so light, almost airy in texture that Sara rued sharing. Grissom felt the same about his _lasagnetta_, which turned out to be a pasta shell filled with a piquant blend of cheeses, eggplant, olives, capers and spices. Still, with each course they nudged their plates to the center of their small table, the better to sample each other's dishes as well as savor their own. It was a custom they'd long shared.

Though in truth going out to eat together like this was still rather new to them both.

Not that there weren't plenty of fantastic restaurants in Vegas. But apart from breakfasts and lunches at Franks, they hadn't eaten out together all that often. Too tired from work to be bothered with the fuss, or more frequently too often called into work to even bother to make plans, it was mostly take-out, supplemented by the occasional home cooked meal.

Which was fine in Sara's opinion. Grissom's _Chemistry of Cooking_ lessons were a heck of a lot more fun than getting all dressed up to fight off the crowds waiting to get into the hot new restaurant of the week.

So the long drawn out _dîners_ that were _de rigueur _in places like Paris and Rome took a little getting used to. Particularly for Sara who with all the rushed dinners, hurried breakfast and meals hastily grabbed in brief moments of respite over the years, had long regarded food as more necessity than a source of enjoyment. Yet she found she enjoyed the ritual of it, or perhaps mostly the company.

The latter she never did quite tire of. Even when they'd been living and working together 24/7.

By the time the waiter set down their dessert plates of _goccia di cioccolato bianco con cuore di mousse e salsa di fragole _and _4 bottoncini di cheese cake con mirtilli, lamponi, fragoline e ribes, _the two of them had acquired not only the well-satiated glow of the well-fed, but also the quiet contentment of longtime lovers.

After a while Sara sighed, "I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

"What?"

"You on vacation."

And while he replied, "I thought that was the whole point," he was thinking they should have done this ages ago, gone away, just the two of them.

Even if it would have probably led to some curiosity about the office. As neither of them was exactly known to take holidays, the two of them off at the same time –

But maybe that shouldn't have mattered. Not maybe, it shouldn't have.

Of course it wasn't like they would have been able to get away anyway.

Still.

Yet there was little point to either regrets or dwelling on the past, as neither could be changed, this he knew. But the future was something else.

Part of him was entertaining thoughts about where they might go next time when he felt the brush of her foot against his leg. Initially regarding it as an accident inherent to sitting in such close quarters, he barely blinked.

The second time, he wasn't quite so sure and it resulted in a momentary break in conversation, at least on his end. For her part, Sara looked as steadfastly and serenely nonchalant as ever.

By the third time however, he knew it to be deliberate. There was certainly no mistaking her bare foot having slipped beneath the cuff of his trousers. To which his eyes went wide and he let out a soft gasp while the corner of his wife's lips only curled up at the edges.

At the curious look he was giving her, Sara leaned in, the dim candlelight more than bright enough to illuminate the mischief and desire in her eyes as she murmured low so only he could hear, "What, you've never had anyone play footsie with you under the table before?"

His expression plainly indicated that the idea had never even occurred to him and he felt her foot withdraw.

"I wasn't suggesting you should stop. I just can't say that I have," he replied and she brightened at this. And even more so when he inclined his head to say, "Does this mean you're flirting with me?"

"How very astute of you to notice, Gilbert," she chuckled. "What else was I to do? I don't know how to flirt in Italian."

"Well, sometimes words _are_ overrated."

"Oh, really?"

He nodded with an impish smirk of his own.

The mere idea that Gil Grissom actually could and did flirt, and wasn't half-bad at it to boot, Sara knew would strain the credulity of most of their friends and colleagues back in Vegas. Not that she could blame them. Hell, his facility for flirting had surprised the heck out of her in the beginning.

These days she merely regarded it as just one of her husband's many unexpected charms and enjoyed it.

"Except," he added, "you complain about my feet being cold."

Sara pitched a blueberry at him in return for his cheek and they both laughed.

* * *

Stepping into the warm, golden glow of lamplight and having not been able to take advantage of the view from the top of The Spanish Steps before dinner, they decided to take in the prospect.

Grissom motioned for Sara to go on ahead, musing as she did on how those who decried _Chivalry was dead_ or horribly old-fashioned had no idea what they were missing. Of course _Chevalerie _and protection from snakes notwithstanding, there were other more appreciative benefits to _Ladies first_.

The sight of his wife's stockingless, slightly tanned legs peaking out from beneath the swirl of her skirt was definitely one of them. They certainly didn't want for the amendment of heels, but then they never had.

Captivated and desiring to relish in the view, he loitered several steps behind.

About half way up, perplexed at the absence of her husband beside her, Sara paused and turned to peer over her shoulder.

And he knew he was caught.

Although Grissom didn't look the least bit chagrined and Sara wasn't about to chastise him for looking. Still smirking and shaking her head, as ever bewildered yet genuinely flattered by his attentions and open admiration, she only sighed, extended her hand and waited for him to catch her up.

But his next words caught her up short.

"I love you," he whispered.

Sara could feel the strange warmth of a blush rise in her cheeks.

Unexpected and out of the blue as they were, the words came as a surprise.

They always did.

More than a year of marriage, him coming to find her in Costa Rica, everything they'd been through, none of that changed that fact. Not even knowing as she did, that he loved her. That there was never any doubt of it, obvious as it was in every look and touch, however ordinary.

He was trying, she knew too, had been trying, to be more open and free with his feelings as of late. So she secreted the sentiment in her heart even as she laughed, "What no Italian?"

"_Ti amo_," he readily supplied.

"Yeah, I'm not so sure I should leave you in Rome on your own for a few days. Since it appears that all you can do in Italian is flirt."

Grissom chose to ignore this, saying instead, "_Ou peut-être en français_?" in his usual flawless French.

"If you did it in German, I'd be impressed."

As he looked as if he was seriously about to attempt it, Sara nudged him playfully and muttered, "Show off."

"Doesn't make it any less true," Grissom countered.

He did have a point there. That didn't mean she was above teasing him about it nonetheless. "You're only saying that cause you're hoping to get lucky tonight."

"No."

She shrugged. "Too bad. It's working."

An eyebrow went up at this.

"So, where are we off to?" she asked.

For there was no question of going back to the hotel just yet. They were both far too much creatures of the night at heart for the evening to be anything but young at just a little past ten. Besides, enjoying it all too much as they were, and knowing all too well what tomorrow would bring, neither of them wanted it to end so soon, either the night or their holiday together. Yes, they were in no hurry at all.

There was just one problem.

"For the rest of the evening?" he questioned in return, stalling slightly, afraid she might be disappointed to discover he hadn't given much thought to anything beyond dinner that night.

But Sara wasn't in the slightest. "What no plans?" she queried more amused than anything.

Pulling her phone from his inside jacket pocket Grissom said, "I'm sure I could find something."

"Hand it over," she insisted.

Which he did rather reluctantly. Sara promptly shut it down before returning the phone to him, saying, "Pick a direction."

"Is this a quiz?" he asked.

"Don't worry. I do know how to say_ We're lost _in Italian: _Ci siamo persi._ With our luck, I thought the phrase might come in handy," she smiled.

When he persevered in looking doubtful she laughed, "Where's _your_ sense of adventure? Or are you not willing to put your money where your mouth is, Gilbert?"

At the blank look he was giving her, Sara smirked, "You don't remember?"

"No."

And she was having a hard time keeping the incredulity from her voice as she asked, "Since when are you forgetful? 'Wandering is good for you,'" she quoted. "'Not all who wander are lost.'"

"Actually, Tolkien said that."

"So did you, two days ago. After you got us lost in Provence," she supplied.

"We were never lost," protested Grissom. "We just weren't where we wanted to be."

"Right."

Knowing any further contradiction to be a lost cause, he only shook his head and gave a resigned murmur of "I swear you really do memorize everything I say."

"Not everything. Only what might come in handy to use against you later," Sara countered with a grin. "Isn't marriage wonderful?"

As a matter of fact, it was.

So Grissom didn't protest when taking his hand she insisted, "Come on, we can be found tomorrow."

_To read more about Grissom and Sara's night out in Rome see_, Better Angels


	18. Eighteen: Pax Romana

**Eighteen: Pax Romana**

"...the bright day is done,

And we are for the dark,"

_Antony and Cleopatra_, William Shakespeare

Soon - all too soon - they were utterly lost.

And absolutely unconcerned about the prospect.

With all the ease of those well acquainted with the night, they were more than happy to haunt the mostly empty streets, holding hands and walking close along the cobblestones, conversing in quiet whispers and so content in the company that they wandered without realizing it for hours amongst the city's many fountains and grandly gilt lit monuments.

And that didn't include the quarter hour they'd been sidetracked by the flashes of fuchsia from the fast beating wings of a pair of _Deilephila elpenor, _elephant hawk-moths, hovering hungrily about the jasmine gardens of the Gianicolo.

So it was genuinely late when Grissom suggested they finally surrender to the time.

"Tired?" asked Sara in reply.

"No," he grinned.

Then as if there was any doubt as to what he did have in mind (not like there was) he leaned in, his bright eyes darkening and his smile turning into an expression Sara never saw him wear with anyone else but her.

"'Come,'" he softly intoned, "'let us take our fill until the morning; let us solace ourselves with love,'" causing Sara to say with a smirk, "I don't think I recognize that one."

Upon his enlightening her, her echoing "_The Bible_?" sounded as equally incredulous as she looked.

"There are quite a few racy parts," Grissom noted, ever nonchalant. "The Song of Solomon in particular."

At this Sara simply took his hand and tugged him off in the general direction of their hotel, no longer interested in loitering in the least.

* * *

Nor wishing to disturb the other guests, it being long, long past midnight by the time they stole into the silent courtyard, Sara slid off her sandals so as to pad quietly, yet quickly along the walkway. The coldness of the stone beneath her bare feet serving to spur her on as much as the warmth of her desire.

Once inside, she had to laugh at the absurdity of it, the two of them creeping like a couple of teenagers concerned about being caught passed curfew.

But her laughter soon gave way to a delight of another sort as her husband took up the edges of her shawl and tugged her to him. For one breathless moment Sara thought he might kiss her, but he didn't. Rather he ran his palms along her bare arms, both to warm them and to relish in the feel of her.

The caress as it so often was, was both soothing and tender and electric all at once, jolting their earlier easy flirtation into sweet, slow seduction.

Having already removed his jacket, Grissom wordlessly moved to relieve her of her wrap. Sara gladly turned to oblige but was kept from returning to face him again by the brush of his breath along her shoulder as he drew up close to her, close, tantalizingly close but not quite close enough to touch.

Having caught the trace, that hint of the heady sweetness of orange blossoms lingering about her skin, he'd bent, the better to breathe it and her in. She'd missed that momentary catch in his throat, but not the heat of his exhale. Her eyes closed at it.

"_Danainae_," he murmured after a while.

"Hmm?" she said, unsure if she heard him correctly.

"_Danaus plexippus_."

Both curious and yet perplexed as to how _that_ was what her husband was thinking about at this particular moment, with a half laugh Sara asked, "Monarch butterflies?"

"The world's first perfume blenders," Grissom supplied, replacing the graze of breath with first that of his fingers, then his lips, pressing a lingering kiss into the space just behind her right ear.

His next words buzzed along the hollows of her neck, "The males flit from flower to flower to collect the perfect blend of scents -"

"To drive the ladies crazy?" she finished with a sigh.

Which was apropos really, as this protracted nuzzling of his, the sort that invariably worked to dismantle the very last vestiges or even pretense of resistance, always left her practically purring with the pleasure of it. Not that Sara had any cause, need or wont for resistance that night. She was more than pleased to relish in the attention and what she knew it portended.

Nor was his voice entirely steady either, when he whispered, "And therefore predated the human practice by nearly 150 million years."

At this Sara couldn't help but smile, supposing as she did that entomology wasn't exactly customary pillow talk, nor conventionally romantic, sexy or seductive. With any one else, she would have been tempted to agree that it was strange; with Grissom no. For Gil Grissom, bugs were romantic and sexy and seductive. Or at least somehow managed to become that way. How precisely she was never sure. They just were. Just as his comments were so quintessentially - and endearingly - her husband.

"_Bugs know best_," Sara recited the oft-used adage, both sagely and vaguely all at once and he chuckled against her shoulder in response.

His hand hovered over the zip. For the first time, Sara consciously noted the absence of buttons to the dress he had bought her and wasn't entirely sure it was coincidence.

"No buttons this time," she observed.

"Not this time," he agreed and took her words as permission.

There was the long, drawn-out rasp of the zipper; the slow reveal of more of her freckled skin.

Sara never understood her husband's fascination, probably never would. In her experience, freckles were, like the gaps in one's teeth, things people and particularly boys made fun of, not something to be admired. Grissom on the other hand, enjoyed being on intimate terms with each and every one of those freckles, liked to construct constellations, make mazes his fingers and lips could follow, especially over those particularly sensitive places it hadn't taken him long to discover. Turned out he wasn't entirely averse to tickling when he was the one doing it.

Although there wasn't the least hint of mischief that night. Instead, his touch was promising and unhurried.

That was the one thing about being apart so much, the languid lovemaking before leaving.

Perhaps it wasn't wild, unbridled passion. It was better. And passion all the same.

Sara wasn't about to complain. She liked it. Liked it in him. Certainly liked his touch on her skin, his lips, his breath. The way his thumb slowly traced the curve of her spine. That he'd finally become rather deft with the unfastening of certain undergarments. How his hand slid beneath the fabric of her dress and around her waist before coming to rest on her stomach, holding her to him. She was glad of it, its steadying influence. Something she much needed once he resumed his ministrations to the back of her neck, intent as he was on lavishing attention to each vertebrae her upswept hair left bare.

Wanting the feel of his mouth on hers, she turned, reached up to wrap her arms about his neck and kissed him, stretching up upon her tiptoes to further deepen and lengthen the kiss into adamant openmouthed breathlessness.

Which he eagerly returned with equal enthusiasm. For even after all this time, she tasted as she had the first time: of possibilities, of life and love and longing.

And before long, Sara wasn't the only one feeling a little weak in the knees; she could feel his grasp tighten at her hips before they finally broke apart.

"Too many clothes," she murmured, fingering the buttons of his shirt, working them free between kisses, first absently, soon intently, though not intently enough to get in the way of said kissing.

Still she undressed him with the same earnest care he'd done her.

That once she'd peeled off his undershirt her hands were cold on his chest didn't matter. Her touch was too intoxicating.

"Sara," he began, but got no further.

She recognized the pause, the struggle and understood he was having a hard time putting his feelings into words and knew, too, how hard that was for him. Her eyes softened. She took his face into her hands, smiled and nodded.

"It's okay," she said and it was. He didn't need to say it. She didn't need to hear the words. She knew. She knew.

Grissom might not always have the words he wanted to express himself, but his touch left no room for ambiguity.

So she drew him close to whisper, "Show me," into his ear.

He did.

* * *

Their unhurried tenderness lasted long into the early hours of the morning, when they lay there close, still intertwined, content in the comfortable intimacy of longtime lovers, whispering and kissing and laughing and caressing.

But no matter how much they didn't want the night to end or how hard they tried to stay awake, they slipped off to sleep sometime after three.

Neither was to know it would be the last deep, satisfied sleep either would know for quite some time.

* * *

Light beneath the curtain had begun to creep; morning come again.

Curled up content with his still slumbering and very naked wife beside him, the very last thing Gil Grissom wanted to do was get out of bed.

But there were just some calls one couldn't ignore for long.

And as they'd fallen asleep only a few hours before all tangled up in each other, and him very much not wishing to wake Sara, he had to work to carefully extricate himself before padding off to the bathroom.

Of course with her laying there barebacked and beautiful, it wasn't just the morning chill that made him hurry back to bed.

He was barely beneath the sheets again when as if instinctively seeking out his warmth, Sara rolled over in her sleep, her hand slipping naturally across his middle as she snuggled closer. Grissom's lips twitched into a smile at the possessiveness inherent in that grasp.

That grin only grew at the way her soft sigh soon shifted into the first rumbles of a snore. Recalling how regularly and steadfastly his wife decried his snoring, he had to catch himself before a chuckle escaped.

For he didn't dare wake her. Her tendency towards crankiness notwithstanding, and her nightmares might be better these days, but her work hours back in Vegas were not. And then there was the far less selfless and more honest reason of wanting to keep her near him as long as possible.

Not that there was a chance in hell of him falling back asleep. But he didn't regret that in the least, quite comfortable as he was lying here with her. After all, it was one of his favorite places in all the world: Sara beside him like this, her head resting just above his heart.

Grissom fingered a curl that had come free during their earlier lovemaking for a moment before easing it back behind her ear, placed a kiss into her hair, then rested his head on hers, inhaling once more that rich redolence of orange blossoms yet remaining about her. Roses may be for Rome, but it was the scent of those blossoms he would ever after associate with the place.

Instinctively his breathing slowed to synch with hers, unable as he was to resist the reassurance in its deep, regular rise and fall that was so soothing, nearly as primally so as was that warmth of bodies molded close in that gentle press, almost caress, of skin on skin.

His hand slid from her now fully healed shoulder down her back, where savoring the feel of her beneath his fingertips, he began to trace abstract shapes. While her snore slipped into the murmur of a sigh in reply to the caress, she only stirred long enough to nestle a little nearer.

Grissom closed his eyes at this, vaguely wondering if it were possible to have too much happiness.

It was that same sense he'd woken to that first morning in Costa Rica nearly a year and a half before. That if one was very fortunate, they would one day wake to an explicable sense of joy.

That unlooked for joy, the quiet peace, that unexpected comfort, the sheer pleasure of her with him again, it all certainly passed his understanding. It was still strange to love and be loved like this, still surprised him. Part of him hoped it always would.

For he relished being here like this with her. And not just because all too soon it would be just a memory. There was nothing like having his wife back with him.

Still he collected moments like this one, like he had so much of this last nearly week they'd had together. He gathered them up - the memory of her smile, her laugh, the feel and touch of her, the scent and taste - and hoarded them to save and later savor in her absence.

He may not have gotten it right the first time, or sadly even the second, but he knew better now and truly grasped the priceless value of what he possessed.

If there was anything all their time apart had taught him, it was not to take it or Sara for granted.

Yet he wondered too why the most perfect moments in life were all too short for all their meaning.

All he knew was he didn't have the words to describe it that morning either.

Somehow four years and marriage had done little to change the fact that even now Grissom found it so difficult to express his feelings when it came to Sara.

Sure there were borrowed words and in abundance. But he wanted his own and not to be rendered dumb and tongue-tied when there was so much left unsaid.

In the beginning perhaps it was understandable not to have the words for his hopes and fears, for the wants and desires he hadn't really had before, or perhaps not allowed himself to have.

But he hadn't liked it, not knowing then what to say or do. True, he knew he didn't know everything, but at least he could frequently find out. Except it seemed not in this, in what all the strange sensations meant.

For love wasn't something you could learn out of a book, no matter how many volumes existed on the topic. Science didn't help. What good were studies on the chemistry of attraction? They might attempt to explain the how about it all, but didn't provide one damn clue as to what to do about it. Even empirical observation failed him and understandably, love and loving tending to be rather private things.

And it wasn't as if he could just ask.

Besides, most of the people he knew seemed more jaded than not about the whole thing. Apparently divorce did that to people.

So words, which had always seemed his best ally, all equally seemed to vanish when it came to Sara, she who so often left him speechless, not because there were no words, but because there were so many. And yet all inadequate.

If only words were as overrated as he'd rather flippantly told his wife at dinner the night before. And maybe they were, if Sara's gentle admonitions for him to show her were any indication.

_Sara - _

Sara understood, sometimes understood him better than he did himself.

It was strange to be known like that: intimately, heart and mind and body and soul, breathing and being, and yet be loved all the same.

He'd long thought it would be scary, being known that way. And it had been. Or maybe he'd been more scared of what that knowing meant.

But when it came to Sara, he was in the middle before he knew he had begun.

It had been much like Carl Jung had once described: _The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances, if there is any reaction, both are transformed. _

At first, there were small, nearly imperceptible changes, most of the sort that were easy to dismiss while Sara was five hundred miles away in San Francisco, but far harder when she came to Vegas to stay.

He couldn't deny that he'd certainly been attracted - and something more.

It hadn't been _love_ when they'd first met. He hadn't had a word for it then; he didn't possess the word for it now._ Love_ with its single syllable barely longer than a breath, how could a word so small truly convey so much?

He'd probably never understand it - love, Sara, any of it - let alone be able to speak about it. But perhaps he figured, Sara and Pierre Reverdy had it right:

_Il n'y a pas d'amour, il n'y a que des preuves d'amour_.

There is no love. There are only proofs of love.

It might be woefully inadequate by his own estimations, but Grissom loved Sara the best and only way he knew how; tried to as hard as it was to do so from too frequently over 6000 miles away.

He might be okay, and even that wasn't the right word, with the whole long distance marriage thing. It was more that he accepted it; they both did. Somehow a few weeks turned into a few months and then half a year and now it had been nearly half that again. Accepting that reality didn't mean he had to like it. Or prefer it that way. Or miss her any less while she was gone.

It sucked.

There was no elegant, erudite or less crude way to put it. It sucked being apart all the time.

And it wasn't getting any easier, only worse.

If anything, nearly a whole week of not living todays in yesterdays and tomorrows made it harder to be apart.

It was always too short a time and no matter how hard he tried not to, he still found himself getting used to having Sara there. That and the more he saw her, the more he wanted to see her.

True, it was far different than the months they'd been apart before, the ones after she'd left Vegas that last time. It wasn't heartache or heartbreak. Still, he missed her all the same.

He had a good life in Paris, though it was nothing like this, nothing like the time he had with her, the days as short as butterflies' and yet -

He wouldn't trade this life they'd made together for anything, not even when they had to spend so much of it with an ocean and half a continent between them.

It might be an unconventional marriage, he would be the first to admit it, but it was a life together and having come close, too close to losing even the possibility of such a life, he knew just how precious that life was, however strange and different.

So he let her go without complaint. And yes, he worried. But those he kept to himself.

As the bells from la Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere began to chime the hour, part of him wondered if it would be any easier this time not to wake to the lingering scent of her in the sheets long after she was gone.

His heart grew heavier with each peal, intoning as it did in reply, _Not yet. Not yet. Not yet_.

Yet there was no mistaking the lateness of the morning or the nearness of Sara's going. And as much as he wanted to keep her here, keep her close, there were trains and planes to catch. And life, real life to begin again.

Grissom breathed in one last time that reassuring scent of her before murmuring gently, "Honey-"

She only nuzzled nearer.

"Sara," he tried again.

Then a little more insistent, but with no less regret, he whispered, "Honey, it's time."


	19. Epilogue Coda

**Epilogue: Coda**

**Hepburn**: I don't know how to say goodbye. I can't think of any words.

**Peck**: Don't try.

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in _Roman Holiday_

Sara was tired. Already.

And her flight out of Rome hadn't even left yet.

That she and Grissom had been up and rather pleasantly occupied for more than half the night before had little to do with it.

The half hour train ride to the airport - the quarter hour wait to catch the packed, stuffy shuttle to Terminal 5 - the hour and a half long check-in queue dominated by a rather unhappy shuffling horde of travelers, all harried due to the Eyjafjallajokull backlog - and the then yet another equally long wait and shuttle ride to the actual gate - they were another story entirely.

These were the times when Sara rued she'd need a vacation from her vacation.

Not that she would have traded the last few days for anything.

But as travel weary as she was, she was in no hurry to sit, not knowing that she was about to have little other option for the next nineteen hours.

Preferring instead to kill the last twenty minutes before her flight was scheduled to board leisurely stretching her soon to be cramped limbs, she opted to wander along Terminal C. With all its slick, brilliantly illuminated high-end fashion boutiques, l'Aeroporto Leonardo da Vinci di Fiumicino resembled more mall than airport in Sara's opinion, causing her to wonder and not for the first time if the _you must_ _arrive at the airport 160 minutes before your flight_ policy had more to do with making sure people had plenty of time to spend the last of their holiday cash than with ever-stricter heightened security measures.

Far too lost in her own thoughts and reminiscences Sara did little more than vaguely window shop. In any case, she wasn't really into designer goods. Catherine, however, would have been in heaven.

_Speaking of Catherine_, she thought as her phone gave an impatient buzz at her hip and Sara hurried to retrieve it, thinking her friend and supervisor had texted her again. Not that Sara could complain. The first she'd heard from her boss back in Vegas since she left the week earlier was the single brief text she'd received only an hour before.

Catherine, who was a firm believer in _work hard, play hard_, held fast to the managing principle that time off should be time off and seldom if ever bothered with even a text message or email while Sara was away. For Sara this _no working while on vacation_ policy had taken some getting used to. Although admittedly on this trip she had barely given a moment's thought to all the work she knew would be waiting for her when she got back.

But Vegas was still Vegas. And Sara wasn't quite sure she wanted to know exactly what she was returning to just yet.

So she was pleased to find the text from another quarter entirely.

_Still at the airport?_ Her husband's message read.

She withdrew into a relatively quiet and out of the way corner to type in reply, _Still? Just got through check-in._

_After two hours? _

_More like almost three, _she corrected, _but yeah._

This time her phone chirruped with a call. Picking it up before the second ring, Sara answered with a bright, "Does this mean you miss me already?"

For she had left him at the Termini Station less than four hours before, Grissom having insisted on coming with her at least that far. Thus their trip and time together had ended much the same as it had begun: with a train and a journey.

And with all the usual lasts of leaving: last smiles, last words, last kisses, that last touch, last look, all as ever put off for as long as possible.

Even after all this time and all the occasions, they really hadn't gotten any better at goodbyes. Or all that fond of them. They were no longer awkward, but no less difficult.

Which was why once Sara had left the congested heat of the shuttle and stepped into the far cooler terminal, she unearthed the darkly patterned Kashmir shawl Grissom had given her the night before from within her carryon to drape about her shoulders. It might not exactly go with her usual travel ensemble of jeans and a t-shirt, but she didn't care. The over air-conditioned airport air aside, she wanted the warmth of memory it provided.

"_Naturalmente_," her husband replied, in very passable Italian. "I brushed up at lunch," he offered to her disbelieving chortle.

"Of course you did," she sighed.

Unable to discern where he might be from the background noise on his end, Sara asked.

"The grounds of the Villa Borghese," he supplied.

"More bug hunting?" she queried, but before he could answer she chided, "You never did finish telling me about the Barbarini bees like you promised."

"Blame the rain."

"And you fell asleep," laughed Sara.

"I believe you insisted on the nap," Grissom countered.

"You needed it."

"Next time."

"Next time," she agreed, more pleased than disappointed. It was nice, his surety in the possibilities of next times.

"Anyway," he was saying, "bug hunting isn't half as fun without you."

Imagining him out and about in the fresh air and sunshine while she was cooped up in Fiumicino's post-modern, industrialism gone awry confines, Sara said, "Not feeling sorry for you right now."

"Not even a little?"

"Nope."

"_La belle dame sans merci_," Grissom intoned somberly. Then in a knowing sort of voice he added, more statement than question, "You're heading straight into work, aren't you?"

"Probably," admitted Sara. "Particularly if Catherine's latest text is any indication."

"That bad?"

"Not yet. But you know Vegas. Actually, all she wanted to know was how Paris was and if I was still planning on coming back. I told her Paris was fine and I was on my way now."

"Except," he countered, "You never made it to Paris."

"I'm sure Paris is still fine," she replied. "Besides, some things are best kept private."

Sara could practically hear the grin in his "I see."

But Grissom was serious again when he said, "Be safe."

"I'll try," she readily assured him. "You know," she began, swiftly changing the subject, "if you can manage to get into The Galleria Borghese you won't want to miss the statue of Napoleon's sister, Pauline. Canova chose to immortalize her as Venus Victrix, apple and all.

"It was quite _le scandale_ at the time as she actually posed _demi-nue. _Which as she was a Bonaparte is saying something. Reportedly her husband found the finished product so uh... revealing that he kept it under lock and key so that not even the sculptor could view it."

There was no hiding the incredulity in Grissom's voice when he asked, "And you know this how?"

"Art history 101," Sara supplied. "The professor was more into the Baroque, bad puns and all, but he could never resist a juicy scandal. Made the class interesting. Plus, he was cute, so I paid attention."

Sara had to choke back a chuckle as she could hear her husband spluttering on the other end of the line.

"Just seeing if _you_ were paying attention," she rejoined. "So what plans do you have for the rest of your time in Rome?"

For Grissom had discovered when he'd gone to apply for a return ticket to Paris at the train station that morning that because of the continuing travel problems resultant from the volcano eruption, there wasn't a seat to be found until Saturday. Not that he seemed all that put out about the prospect of having a few more days in Rome.

"Apart from miss you?" he asked.

She gave him a grin he couldn't see. "Apart from that, Gil."

"I have no idea."

"It's only a three hour train ride to Pompeii. You could always go see those frescos you go on about," she suggested.

"Which ones are those?"

"The bacchanal featuring the initiation of the young bride of Dionysius. Life size figures engaged in orgiastic dances. The ones you said were more explicit than porn. I looked them up." Then when she could tell from his silence he was drawing a blank or at least pretending to, she supplied, "Vanessa Keaton case. Dead body in a fountain."

"Six years ago?"

"Yeah."

"What were you saying about me never forgetting anything? Rather hypocritical,_ n'est-ce pas_, my dear."

Sara laughed, "_Peut-être, Gilbert_," emphasizing the French pronunciation of his full first name. "Which reminds me, who won?"

"Won?" he echoed.

"The bet on the train ride over. Old school versus new school. Whose Italian proved better. I know you remember," she insisted. "We never decided who won."

"How about a draw?"

"Okay," Sara reluctantly agreed, then said, curious as to the response, "Does that mean we both won or we both lost?"

Grissom replied, "Won," as if that were of course the only possible answer, causing Sara to retort, "That's too bad."

"Too bad how?"

"Well, you'll never know -"

"What you had planned?" he finished.

"Unless you want to change your mind and concede defeat."

From the dogged insistence in his "No," Sara didn't need to see his face to know what look her husband was presently wearing. She'd seen him wear it countless times before, that look that plainly said _You have to be joking. _

"Suit yourself," she sighed. "You would have liked it."

"Sara-"

But any further discussion on the subject was drowned out by a female voice over the loudspeaker booming, "_Volo Delta 8121 a New York è ora d'imbarco. _Delta flight 8121 to New York is now boarding."

And Sara let out a reluctant, "That's me."

"Saved by the bell," he chuckled. "_Ciao, Bella. Buon viaggio_."

There was more amusement than rue in her sigh of, "Gil—"

"I know," he said softly. "_A presto, cara mia._"

Recalling as she did from their language lessons on that same train ride over from Nice Grissom proceeding to inform her that while _a presto_ colloquially meant _See you later_, it also held at its heart the literal promise _soon_, Sara smiled and said, "Yeah, you will."

_Finis_

* * *

_A/N: Why is it that I always seem to finish things just in time for the real writers to render them moot? Sigh... _C'est la vie_... Thankfully the franchise is in far better hands than mine... _

_In any case, it's been a wonderful (if sometimes trying) experience, as travel often is. Thank you for taking it with us to the end. _

_And to all my French and Italian editors and everyone who shared their travel experiences with me – I couldn't have done it half as well without you _- merci beaucoup, grazie molto_, and much thanks – in any and every language..._


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